254 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 



Life of the Loess age. 



At the slose of this article will be found a list of the land and fresh- 

 water shells that I have found and identified in the Loess deposits. It 

 will be seen that the list of land shells is quite large. These, no doubt, 

 were brought into this old lake during flood-time. I have occasionally 

 found large numbers of these shells where drift-wood had evidently 

 lodged and decayed. The fresh-water and land shells are mainly sucli 

 as are still to be found in the same region, the exceptions being the 

 prevalence of a large number of southern forms at one horizon of these 

 deposits. As will be seen, the species belong to quite a large number of 

 geuera. 



Occasionally I have found the teeth and a stray bone of fish, but 

 have not been able to identify any species. The remains of rabbits, 

 gophers, otters, beavers, squirrels, deer, elk, and buffalo, are frequently 

 found. Through the entire extent of these deposits are many remains 

 of mastodons and elephants, whose last vigorous life, as Newberry re- 

 marks, expired in high northern latitudes. Lancaster County is specially 

 rich in these proboscidian remains. They are frequently found in this 

 deposit in digging wells. In Lincoln they have been found in at least 

 twenty wells that have been dug in and around the city. This town is 

 near what appears to have been the western shore-line of the Missouri 

 lake of the period. Between it and the Blue River, at Crete, there is a 

 high divide covered by Drift materials. These huge animals no doubt 

 often here came down to the shore to drink, and playing in the water 

 became mired in the mud. One tusk found in a well on P street, east of 

 Twelfth, must have been at least eleven feet long when entire. It was 

 so far decayed that it fell to pieces on exposure. 



For years I have been closely watching for human remains in the 

 Loess deposits. Five years ago, three miles east of Sioux City, Iowa, 

 in a railroad-cut I found a small arrow-head in these deposits. I was 

 looking for moUusks, and was digging after them with a large knife 

 when I struck something hard, and, laying it bare, to my great surprise 

 and joy found it to be an arrow-head. So far as I knew, this was the 

 first mark that had yet been discovered of the presence of man during 

 this age. From that time onward I have seized every opportunity for 

 exploring these deposits for human remains. The same year I found 

 some flint chips in the bluffs back of Jackson, in Dakota County, but it 

 was not absolutely clear that these were of human origin. My next find 

 was about two and a half miles southeast of Omaha, in a railroad-cut, 

 where I found a large coarse arrow or spear head. This last was found 

 two years ago. It was found twenty feet below the top of the Loess, 

 and at least six inches from the edge of the cut, so that it could not have 

 slid into that place. The first found was fifteen feet below the top of 

 the deposit. Figure No. 1 is the arrow-head found east of Sioux City, 

 and No. 2 found southeast of Omaha. It appears, then, that some old 

 races lived around the shores of this ancient lake and paddled their 

 canoes over its waters, and accidentally dropped their arrows in its 

 waters or let them fly at a passing water-fowl. It is possible also l^at 

 these arrows came into this old lake by drift-wood. I once found au 

 arrow sticking in a log that came down the Missouri, and if it had con- 

 tinued on to the Gulf it might have been unearthed in the far-off future, 

 when that portion of the continent at the mouth of the Mississippi had 

 become dry land. Thirteen inches above the point where the last-named 

 arrow was found, and within three inches of being on a line with it, in 

 undisturbed Loess, there was a lumbar vertebra of an elephant {Elephas 



