856 J. D. Dana—Reindeers in Southern New England. 
5. The clay beds of the Quinnipiac valley antedate the great 
flood due to the final dissolution of the glacier; for at the vil- 
lage of Quinnipiac the bed is overlaid on the west side by beds 
of coarse gravel, and just south of North Haven the sand and 
gravel overlying the clay bed has the flow-and-plunge structure 
so common in the stratified drift. 
In my Memoir on the Geology of the New Haven region, I 
referred the clay-beds to the later or “Alluvian” part of the 
Champlain or Fluvial period, supposing them to be the mud- 
deposits made along the borders of the great Quinnipiac basin 
or inner New Haven harbor, during the more quiet portion of 
that era of submergence ; and the sand-beds overlying and under- 
lying the clay beds at North Haven I referred to the same time. 
ut the discovery since then of the large bowlders in the clay 
beds,* and of evidence that the deposit of coarse stratified 
gravel situated along side of the clay pits actually overlies the 
clay in places, as proved by boring, appears to force us to 
the conclusion that the clay beds were (1) completed after the 
— had retreated from the valley, and (2) before the final 
) 
6. Whether this retreat of the glacier was a temporary Te 
treat, produced by a warm interval in the era of ice, OF 
whether it was the final retreat, marking the progress of its 
final dissolution over New England, it is not easy positively to 
decide. The formation of stratified drift over the New Haven 
region has no break in the succession of its beds to mark such 
a retreat and return of the ice; and the clayey stratum con 
tains no layer of vegetable or animal debris as testimony to 
warm interval. All that the few facts suggest as to climate 18 
that it was such as reindeers liked, which means that 1t was 
cold, and that the ice was still not far off to the north. 
Remains of the Reindeer have been found in Northern New 
York on Racket River, and in Southern, at Sing Sing; 12 New 
Jersey, at Vincentown, Burlington County; and in Kentucky at 
Big Bone Lick. The specimen from Vincentown describ 
Dr. Leidy+ and that from Sing Sing, mentioned_by Mr. 
Fishert were antlers. Dr. Leidy says that the Vincentown 
“antler bears a nearer resemblance to those of the Barren 
Ground [or Arctic] Reindeer than it does to those of the 
Toodland Reindeer [or Caribou], but differs in some ropes 
from both.” In my Geological Manual I have suggested ae 
these remains may indicate the occurrence on the America) 
Continent of the second glacial era so well marked in Hurope 
*G v of the Ne i : i 
tives heat. Nat, Bei, Philadelphia, 1858, p. 179, and Journ. Acad. Nat. & 
lon vol. vii, 2d series, 1869, on the Extinct Mammalian Fauna, “ 
} Ibid., 1859, 194. 
