SKULL OF THE PLEISTOCENE TAPIR. 
69 
at the present time.* According to Shimek, the land and fresh- 
water molluskan fauna has remained essentially unchanged from the 
Aftonian inter-glacial stage to the present time.f The vertebrates, 
as we know, have changed very decidedly since that time. 
To the fossils already mentioned may be added the reported 
presence of human remains in this stratum. The muck bed imme- 
diately above contains human remains and artifacts in relative abun- 
dance. From his own observations the writer believes that the 
human remains and artifacts are present likewise at the strati- 
graphic level from which this skull was taken. This subject is dis- 
cussed in papers previously published. $ 
GEOLOGIC HORIZON. 
The determination of the horizon represented by this assemblage 
of fossils is very much to be desired. In the publications relating 
to the locality the correlation has varied under the treatment of 
different writers from early Pleistocene to Recent. The vertebrate 
fossils, it will, perhaps, be agreed include species which heretofore 
have been regarded as characteristic of the Mid — or Early Pleisto- 
cene. It has been suggested, however, that in the southern part of 
the United States, Pleistocene veterbrate species persisted longer 
than in the northern states, and that the early Pleistocene species 
may have continued into the late Pleistocene. However, enticing 
this suggestion may appear on theoretical grounds, it is wise to 
await other proof before applying unreservedly so broad a general- 
ization, especially as there seems to have been no barrier to inter- 
fere with the spread of this fauna to the north-east and north-west, 
if present in Florida during the late Pleistocene. It has been held 
also that the horizon holding these fossils is necessarily of late 
Pleistocene age because it overlies a terrace which is the latest of 
the Pleistocene terraces of this part of the Atlantic Coast. This 
terrace, it is said, is of the same asre as Talbot of Maryland and New 
lersey which is placed as late Pleistocene. It is doubtful, however, 
if the study of the terraces of Florida has progressed far enough 
* The species identified by Dr. Bartsch from a collection made by the writer 
at Ocala include the following : Succinea campestris, Zonitoides arboreus, Z. 
minusculns. Helicodiscus parallelus, Polygyra jejuna, and Vitrea indentata. 
tBull. Geol. Soc. Amer. Vol. 21 , pp. 1 10-140, 1910. 
$For a list of papers relating to this locality, see Fla. Geol. Survey, 9th 
Ann. Rpt., pp. 69-70 and 141, 1917. 
