POST-TERTIARY PERIOD. 563 



The Elephant of northern North America in the British posses- 

 sions is supposed to have been the Siberian species. 



Mastodon remains are met with most abundantly over the northern 

 half of the United States, though occurring also in the Carolinas, 

 Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas. They are found also in Canada 

 and Nova Scotia. Five perfect skeletons have been dug up, three 

 from the fresh-water marshes of Orange co., N.Y., — where they ap- 

 pear to have been mired, — one from a morass in New Jersey, and 

 another on the banks of the Missouri. Great numbers of bones 

 have been found at Big Bone Lick in Kentucky. In New England 

 a few bones have been found near New Britain and Cheshire in 

 Connecticut. The finest skeleton in any collection is that set up 

 by Dr. Warren at Boston ; it was obtained from a marsh near New- 

 burgh. Its height is 11 feet ; the length to the base of the tail, 17 

 feet; the tusks 12 feet long, — 2\ feet being inserted in the sockets. 

 When alive, the height must have been 12 or 13 feet, and th 

 length, adding 7 feet for the tusks, 24 or 25 feet. Remains of the 

 undigested food were found between his ribs, showing that he lived 

 in part on spruce and fir trees. Fig. 839, from Owen's British Mam- 

 mals, represents the skeleton of this species in the British Museum. 



Castoroides Ohioensis is the name of the great Rodent related to the Beaver 

 ( Castor Canadensis). The Beaver is an animal about three feet long, exclusive 

 of the tail; and the Castoroides was almost or quite five feet. Its bones have 

 been found in the States of New York, Ohio, Mississippi (near Natchez), etc. 



Bison latifrons Leidy, is the name of a Post-tertiary Bison or Buffalo, much 

 larger than the existing Buffalo, which lived in the Mississippi valley. There 

 were also species of Ox related to the Musk-Ox, called Bootherium by Leidy. 



A stag, Cervus Americanus Leidy, whose bones occur at Natchez, exceeded in 

 size the Irish Elk. A Horse from the same locality was also gigantic, — a fit 

 cotemporary, as Leidy observes, of the Mastodon and Elephant. 



The American Post-tertiary Lion, Felis atrox Leidy, was about as large as 

 that of Britain. Only a single jaw-bone has been found at the Natchez bone- 

 locality, where occur remains of species of Bear, Horse, Elephant, Mastodon, 

 Castoroides, Megalonyx, and Mylodon. 



The animals of the Sloth tribe are South American in type. They 

 are at the present time mostly confined to South America, as they 

 were also in the Post-tertiary. 



The Cetacean or Whale, whose remains were found on the bor- 

 ders of Lake Champlain, is supposed to have been about fourteen 

 feet in length. Fig. 840 represents the bones of the head, reduced 

 to one-sixth the natural size. The species, Beluga Vermontana Thomp- 

 son, closely resembles the B. Leucas, or small northern White 

 Whale. 



In South America over one hundred species of extinct Post-tertiary 



