178 NEW YOKE STATE MUSEUM 



vast quantities ; they are smooth-worn, and are smaller the farther 

 they are found from their original strata; they are generally found 

 in irregular layers with sand and clay, as if left so by the action 

 of rapid currents of water. One of the most interesting facts 

 connected with them is, that they have been in many cases trans- 

 ported from lower to higher levels, even up steep acclivities and 

 over high hills. There are spread with them also (but generally 

 lying on the surface of the ground) many large and heavy masses 

 of loose rock, called boulders. Some of these are limestones or 

 sandstones, the origin of which can easily be traced to thin native 

 strata within the state; others are granitic masses, which must 

 have come from beyond Lake Ontario, in the same manner that 

 the peculiar crystalline rocks of the Adirondack mountains are 

 found to have been carried south beyond the Mohawk valley. 

 The surfaces of the rocky strata in all the country, over which 

 these ' drift beds ' have passed, are in many places found to be 

 worn smooth, and scratched or furrowed in a general north and 

 south, or northwest and southeast direction, as if heavy materials 

 had been dragged or driven over them. 



Quaternary fossils 



Among the most recent of the fossil remains, which link to- 

 gether the vanished forms of the past with the living animals 

 of to-day, are the bones of the mastodon and fossil elephant, 

 which are occasionally disinterred in various parts of the state, 

 found buried only in recent accumulations of muck, peat, or 

 other earthy materials. They are relics of a very modern period 

 of geologic history, and these immense animals seem to have lived 

 during the existence in this region of many of our still-remaining 

 wild animals; possibly even since it was inhabited by man. Speci- 

 mens of the mastodon have been found at Cohoes, at Batavia and 

 in Orange county. In addition to these may be mentioned the 

 Gastoroides oliioensis, a gigantic extinct species of beaver, which 

 was probably of the same period with the mastodon. A skull 

 of this species was found near the village of Clyde, in earth, dur- 

 ing the excavation of a canal. Remains of a reindeer have been 

 found at Sing Sing. 



