Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. \55 



of east. Through one of these depressions, which is probably 150 

 feet below the general level of the range, passes the road from 

 Hackettstown to Vienna. By looking at Gordon's Map of New 

 Jersey, a small stream is found to cross the road nearly half-way to 

 Vienna. Mr. Ayers's house is about 100 yards beyond the stream, 

 and the bones were found more than a quarter of a mile beyond his 

 house in a northerly direction, and perhaps 300 yards from the road. 

 The map does not represent the face of the country correctly. The 

 road runs along the northern side of the valley or depression, most 

 of which is occupied by a swampy meadow, through which the 

 stream flows. From the road the ground rises regularly, but pretty 

 rapidly, probably 120 feet in 200 yards, and then descends more 

 gradually 25 or 30 feet into a smaller depression, which, however, 

 does not cut through the ridge like the larger one, but descends very 

 gradually from the general level on the east, and at its western end 

 opens on the brow of the ridge by a kind of ravine. Near this west- 

 ern end is a depression or basin deeper than the outlet, and forming 

 in wet weather a pond-hole. Mr. Ayers says, that formerly the 

 water in it was at times four or five feet deep, but some years ago he 

 drained it in part by a ditch four feet deep, so that now it is merely a 

 wet swampy place, about forty yards in length by twenty-five wide. 

 During the drought last summer it became quite dry, and he took 

 the opportunity to dig out a portion of the earth for manure. In 

 doing this he discovered the bones. The basin slojjes gradually 

 from the east to a depth of about twelve feet near the western side. 

 On the top is about one foot of vegetable deposit formed of decayed 

 leaves, &c., then about six inches of whitish sand mixed with vege- 

 table matter, and below this a deposit, which Mr. Ayers says, when 

 first opened, was of a yellowish colour, very much resembling in ap- 

 pearance the manure of a cow-yard when thrown up in heaps in the 

 winter, and had a very strong smell of the same kind. Exposure to 

 the weather has changed its colour to the dull, bluish- black of 

 swamp earth, with which it seems to be mixed, and with great quan- 

 tities of vegetable remains, principally of marsh plants, scattered frag- 

 ments of branches of trees, &c. In this deposit the remains were 

 found covered from four to six feet deep, except the largest, which 

 lay near the south-east side of the basin, and were but slightly 

 covered. A few feet to the north of this lay the next in size on its 

 back, and a little to the north and west of this the other two, both as 

 if in a standing position, and the calf was found in a similar position 

 near the north side of the basin. From Mr. Ayers's description, the 

 bones of the largest one must have been disturbed after its death, as 

 the tusks were found reversed alongside of the neck. Between the 

 ribs of two or three of them was a considerable quantity of what 

 Mr. Ayers describes as resembling coarse chopped straw, mixed with 

 fragments of sticks, — no doubt the contents of the stomach. 



Not more than one-fourth of the basin has been examined. The 

 openings in it have been made at random, and in each an animal has 

 been found, so that there is probably a number more. " The ques- 

 tion," says Mr.Maxwell, " very naturally occurs, — how and when did 



