CERTAIN BONES, &c. 253 



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 perfect 

 figure of a lion. And thefe are fo rudely done as to leave 

 no room to fufpedt a foreign hand. This could not 

 have been of the fmaller and manelefs Hon of Mexico 

 and Peru, known alio in Africa both in * ancient and -j- 

 modem times, though denied by ;j; M. de BufFon : be- 

 caufe like the greater African lion, he is a tropical ani- 

 mal ; 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 refcmbled the 

 lion fufficiently 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 poflefTion of our upper inha- 

 bitants, which themfelves have heretofore coniidered as 

 fables, but which have regained credit fince the difcovery 

 of thefe bones. There has always been a flory current 

 that the firft company of adventurers who went to feek 

 an eftabliihment in the county of Greenbriar, the night 

 of their arrival were alarmed at their camp by the ter- 

 rible roarings of fome animal unknov/n 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, protected them, 

 and the next morning they abandoned the country. This 

 was little more than 30 years ago. — !n the year 1765, 

 George Wilfon and John Davies, having gone to hunt 



* Ariftot. Animal, 9. 4. Plmy, S. 16. f Kolbe. :j: BulTon, xviii. 18. 



Kk on 



