374 &. BELL—HUDSON BAY MAMMOTH AND MASTODON REMAINS. 
part of an antler of the reindeer. The range of the bison in modern 
times has not come within several hundred miles of this district. 
GEOLOGICAL History oF THE Mastopon anp MammorH 
The elephant family made its first appearance in the Miocene period 
in southeastern Asia. The earliest of the true Proboscidea were (1) the 
Stegodons, which were the ancestors of the mastodons, the mammoths, 
and the Indian elephant, and (2) the Loxodons, the ancestors of certain 
fossil elephants of Europe and also of the African elephant. As time 
went on and new species appeared, the elephants spread from their orig- 
inal birthplace into Europe, Africa, northeastern Asia, and thence into 
America over a neck of land which at a comparatively recent geological 
period closed up Bering strait. That such a land connection existed 
and that mammoths passed over it appears to be proven from the fact 
that remains of these animals have been found on Saint George and 
Saint Paul islands, of the Pribilof group, and on Unalaska, one of the 
Aleutian islands. The deepest part of Bering strait is covered by only 
300 feet of water, and, since a subsidence of more than this amount has 
taken place in the Pleistocene period, there is no doubt that an isthmus 
connected the two continents at no distant date, and that men as well 
as mammoths and other animals may have walked over it. In the old 
world, mastodons died about the close of the Pliocene, but the American 
species (Mastodon americanus) lived on, along with the mammoth, into 
the human period. Falconer says: * 
“Commencing with the older strata of the sub-Apennines and of the Val d’ Arno 
and ascending to the superficial gravels or quaternary deposits of comparatively 
modern origin, at least four well defined species of fossil elephants have been as- 
certained to have existed in Europe, namely, Elephas (Loxodon) meridionalis, E. 
antiquus, EH. primigenius, and EH. (Loxodon) africanus fossilis.” 
A little further on the same writer says: 
‘‘Tf the asserted facts be correct, they seem clearly to indicate that the older 
elephants of Europe, such as £. meridionalis and E. antiquus, were not the stocks 
from which the later species, H. primigenius and E. africanus, sprung, and that we 
must look elsewhere for their origin. The nearest affinity, and that a very close 
one, of the European E. meridionalis is with the Miocene EF. (Loxodon) planifrons of 
India, and of EL. primigenius with the existing Indian species.” 
Again Falconer writes : { 
““The result of any observation is that the ancient mammoth of the preglacial 
* Paleontological memoirs and notes of the late Hugh Falconer, A. M., M. D., vol. ii, p. 251. 
+ Op. cit., p. 254. 
f Op. cit., p. 252. 
