MASTODON REMAINS IN MANITOBA. 387 
glacial. The stratified deposits with which the lignites are associated 
are, in part at least, marine, as proved by the shells which they contain. 
PERIOD WHEN THE MASTODON LIVED HERE 
The mastodon’s jaw described above, having been found loose in the 
bed of the river, may have been washed out of these banks and thus be 
of either interglacial or postelacial date; but it had not suffered any 
wear, the tooth being fresh and perfect, and it shows no sign of abrasion. 
It has been mentioned that lignite occurs in sitw in the bed of the river 
where the jaw with this tooth was found. Y 
This relic of the mastodon may belong to a very recent period, per- 
haps to a time subsequent to the excavation of the river channel out of 
these lignite-bearing clays, sands, and gravels. Its most ancient possi- 
ble date would be subsequent to that of the lignite bed on which it 
rested. 
Mastopon RrMaArIns FOUND IN MANITOBA 
Some years previous to 1855 parts of the skeleton of a large mammal, 
which afterwards proved to belong to a mastodon, were found by In- 
dians in the bottom of the valley of Shell river, at its junction with its 
east branch. This stream is itself an eastern branch of the Assiniboine, 
and it takes its rise in the high ground to the west of lake Winnipegosis. 
The river-flat at the spot where the mastodon remains were found has 
an elevation of 2,050 feet above the sea, according to Mr J. B. Tyrrell.* 
The scapulze were the only portions of this skeleton which reached Kng- 
land, and they were examined by Sir John Richardson, who at first 
gave the species to which they belonged the provisional name of Hlephas 
rupertianus, but afterwards, on making critical comparisons with the 
bones of other fossil elephants, he wrote : 
“The probability, therefore, is that the Swan river (i. e., Swan River district) 
bones belonged to the Mastodon giganteus, and that the range of that species must 
be extended northward in Rupert’s land to the fifty-second parallel of latitude, 
while the provisional geographical designation of Hlephas rupertianus must be ex- 
punged.”’ + ; 
DrEPposITs IN WHICH THE Masropon BoNnrESs WERE FOUND 
In 1874 I examined the Assiniboine river all the way from Fort Pelly 
to Fort Ellice and also a part of Shell river, and sent my assistant, Dr 
* Report of the Geological Survey of Canada for 1890-’91, p. 129 HB. 
+ Zoology of the Voyage of H. M.S. Herald during the years 1845-51. London. Lovell Reeve, 
1854, pp. 101, 141. 
