GEOLOGICAL SITUATION, ETC. 155 



Tlie geological position of the Mastodon Giganteus, as above intimated, Geological 



Position 



differs greatly -from that of the Mastodon Angnstidens. One of the deepest f m. 



Giganteus. 



situations in which the bones of this species have been found, though 

 possibly not the most ancient, is, according to Sir Charles Lyell, the loam 

 resting on the eocene or lower tertiary strata of the region of the Mississippi. 

 In his address to the British Association at the meeting at Southampton in 

 1846, he says that there is a collection of megatheroicl bones, mastodon, 

 elephant, mylodon, tapir, &c, in a deposit resembling the loess of the Rhine, 

 in bluffs skirting the plains of the Missi'ssippi, from fifty to two hundred 

 and fifty feet high. ( Vide Appendix G.) 



Professor Gibbes, of Columbia College, South Carolina, informed me 

 sometime since, that Mastodon bones had been found in miocene at no 

 great distance from Charleston ; but, at a subsequent period, in a letter he 

 >ays "that Mr. Tuomey, having completed his geological survey of South 

 Carolina, has been induced, from a careful comparison of the fossils for three 

 years considered miocene, to class them with the pliocene, there being forty- 

 six per cent of living species among them." 



Mr. Conrad has described a large number of fossil bones of the Mas- 

 ' todon Giganteus, and other extinct animals, on the banks of the Keuse in 

 Xorth Carolina, fifteen miles below Newbern, rolled in an upper tertiary 

 deposit, covered with the shells of oysters and balani. But he seems to be 

 of opinion, that the Mastodon bones were generally of an earlier date than 

 the upper tertiary ; and that, together with the associated quadrupeds, 

 "they belonged either to the medial tertiary, or to the older pliocene 

 period." 



An able geologist, Mr. Foster, who has made a great number of obser- 

 vations of the Mastodon localities, has assured me in the strongest terms 



