Difcovery of the Bones of a ^ladruped. 69 



the new population would foon drive off the larger animals, and the largeft firft. In the 

 prefent interior of our continent there is furely fpace an^ range enough for elephants and 

 lions, if In that climate they could fubfift; and for mammoths and megalonyxes who may 

 fubfift there. Our entire ignorance of the immenfe country to the weft and north-wefl, 

 and of its contents, does not authorife us to fay what it does not contain. 



Moreover It is a faft well known, and always fufceptible of verification, that on a rock 

 on the bank of the Kanhawa, near its confluence with the Ohio, there are carvings of 

 many animals of that country, and among thefe one which has always been confidered as a 

 perfe£l figure of a lion. And thefe are fo rudely done as to leave no room to fufpedl a 

 foreign hand. This could not have been of the fmaller and manelefs lion of Mexico and 

 Peru, known alfo in Africa both In* ancient and f modern times, though denied byf M. 

 de Buffon : becaufe like the greater African lion, he is a tropical animal ; and his want of 

 a mane would not fatisfy the figure. This figure then muft have been taken from fome 

 other prototype, and that prototype muft have refembled the lion fufficlently to fatisfy the 

 figure, and was probably the animal the defcription of which by the Indians made 

 Hawkins, Harriot, and others conclude there were lions here. May we not prefume that 

 prototype to have been the great-claw ? 



Many traditions are In pofTeflion of our upper inhabitants, which themfelves have here- 

 tofore confidered as fables, but which have regained credit fince the difcovery of thefe 

 bones. There has always been a ftory current that the firft company of adventurers who 

 went to feek an eftablifhment in the county of Greenbriar, the night of their arrival were 

 alarmed at their camp by the terrible roarings of fome animal unknown to them : that he 

 went round and round their camp, that at times they faw his eyes like two balls of fire, 

 that their horfes were fo agonifed with fear that they couched down on the earth, and 

 their dogs crept in among them, not daring to bark. Their fires, it was thought, pro- 

 tcfted them, and the next morning they abandoned the country. This was little more 

 than 30 years ago.— In the year 1765, George Wilfon and John Davies, having gone to 

 hunt on Cheat river, a branch of the Monongahela, heard one night, at a diftance from 

 their camp, a tremendous roaring, which became louder and louder as It approached, till 

 they thought It refembled thunder, and even made the earth tremble under them. The 

 animal prowled round their camp a confiderable time, during which their dogs, though on 

 all other occaCons fierce, crept to their feet, could not be excited from their camp, nor 

 even encouraged to bark. About day-light they heard the fame found repeated from the 

 knob of a mountain about a mile off, and within a minute It was anfwered by a fimilar 

 voice from a neighbouring knob. Colonel John Stewart had this account from Wilfon in 

 the year 1769, who was afterwards Lieutenant Colonel of a Pennfylvania regiment in the 

 revolution-war ; and fome years after from Davies, who Is now living in Kentucky. 



• Ariftot. Animal, 9. 4. Pliny, 8. 16. f Kolbe, % BufFon, xviii. 18. 



Thefe 



