46 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



of the animal, harmonize with the belief that they were the play of 

 the waves, yet not carried far. Lying high in the gravel ridge, yet 

 mostly beneath the reach of plant roots, they have escaped rotting, 

 suffering chiefly from pick and shovel. The problem that engages 

 us is, How did the mammoth reach the island? 



Without attempting to defend any theory, the following possi- 

 bilities are suggested : that he swam there ; that he crossed on the 

 ice in winter; that mammoths may have roamed on the surface of 

 the glacier itself and been drifted to this shore by icebergs; that the 

 bloated carcass was floated to the island; that a mammoth colony 

 may have been marooned on the Savannah island by the slowly 

 rising waters of Iroquois, since that lake is now known to have been 

 flooded back upon the south shore by slow uplift of its outlet region. 

 These are some of the possibilities that present themselves; it is 

 not imperative that their pros and cons should be argued until 

 more is known about the pit and its fossil contents. The out- 

 standing fact that seems unlikely to be modified by further evidence 

 is that this occurrence fixes the existence of living mammoths in 

 western New York during the closing phase of full-height Iroquois, 

 a lake that coincided with the period of final recession of the second 

 Wisconsin glacier from the Ontario basin and upper St Lawrence 

 valley. 



Madison county 



Near Canastota. In August of this year Dr. Burnett Smith 

 reported the discovery of mastodon or mammoth bones. The occur- 

 rence is 4 miles north of Canastota and 2 miles distant from the 

 south shore of Oneida lake. The bones were found while exca- 

 vating for a drainage canal in the extensive swampy region lying 

 to the south of Oneida lake. At the present writing, one each of 

 the following bones have been uncovered : femur, ulna, radius, rib, 

 patella. 



Chittenango. Among the collections are several ribs bearing the 

 label " Chittenango, N. Y., E. Emmons 1873." From the same 

 collection are two tusks, with the ivory in an excellent state of 

 preservation. They bear the label " Chittenango, N. Y." From the 

 character of the tusks, these remains are referred to the mammoth. 

 (See Tenth Ann. Rep't State Cab. Nat. Hist. 1857. p. 188.) 



Orange county 

 Near Harriman. In October 191 3 there was acquired by the 

 gift of Mr W. J. Post of Harriman, N. Y., a finely preserved tusk 

 of the mastodon. The specimen was found about 2 miles south of 



