EXHIBITION COLLECTIONS 37 



ago. These fossils were illustrated in Dr. Warren's famous memoir, 

 published in Boston in 1852. 



In the late summer of 1844 a drought dried up many ponds and 

 marshes in the neighborhood of Hackettstown, New Jersey. In a 

 small swamp on his farm, Mr. Abraham Ayers uncovered the re- 

 mains of five mastodons — four adults and a calf. Very evidently 

 the animals had been bogged, for three of them were buried standing 

 upright; inclosed by the ribs of a couple of them Mr. Ayers found 

 what he described as "coarse chopped straw" — remnants of the 

 last meal. 



Only one of these skeletons has come down to us in anything like 

 its entirety; from ignorance and lack of proper care most of the bones 

 of the others crumbled to dust soon after being exhumed, while 

 other small parts were lost through carelessness. It was not till 

 1846 that a number of gentlemen of Boston, Cambridge, and Salem 

 donated what was left to Harvard College. 



The first attempt at setting up the skeleton was scarcely successful, 

 as is obvious from the figure given by Dr. Warren. He was soon 

 commissioned to improve upon it. With his assistant, Mr. Ogden, he 

 made careful comparisons with a modern elephant and his own fa- 

 mous mastodon (now in the American Museum in New York), and 

 mounted it just as it now stands, even to supplying, in cork, the miss- 

 ing foot bones. " The skeleton thus restored was transferred to Cam- 

 bridge; and, in the latter part of the autumn of 1850, presented to the 

 President of the University, the late Governor Everett, Professors 

 Agassiz and Wyman, and the members of the Scientific School." 



Except for a number of teeth and a few odd bones in storage, the 

 skulls and jaws surrounding the mounted skeleton are all that re- 

 mains of the other four mastodons. They are arranged to show the 

 changes in dentition as the animal grows older. The small pair of 

 jaws in the glass case is the youngest of the series. Next to it is an 

 older stage, and at the opposite (front) end of the skeleton is a still 

 older one. The skull of the second stage has been sawed in half to 

 show the form of the brain case, as well as the great thickness of the 

 covering bones, which are nearly as extremely developed as in a 

 modern elephant. 



On opposite sides of the skeleton are a shoulder blade and three 

 dorsal vertebrae of an imperial elephant from Florida. Large as was 



