REPORT ON THE GEOLOGY OF NORTH AMERICA, 27 



known whether it belongs to the living species. This animal 

 has not been seen on the American coast south of lat. 47°. 

 {Annals of the New York Lyceum, vol. ii. p. 271.) 



It was suggested, first, I believe, by Mr. Vanuxem, that all the 

 bones of the Mammoth and other extinct quadrupeds of this 

 country yet found, have been in either the ancient or modern 

 alluvium. Some have been inclined to attribute them exclu- 

 sively to the catastrophe which has strewed the surface of this 

 continent with transported blocks and gravel, or have supposed, 

 in other words, that the races perished by that diluvial action 

 which I have before shown to have occurred, after the period of 

 the ancient alluvium, and prior to the recent. Notwithstanding 

 the extreme neglect which has been hitherto evinced in record- 

 ing the geological situation of the interesting organic remains 

 of the extinct Mammalia of this country, sufficient information 

 has been collected to enable us to reason, I think with some 

 certainty, concerning the date of their disappearance. 



It will be observed that we have authentic accounts of the 

 remains of extinct Mammalia under two entirely dissimilar si- 

 tuations. In one case, as in the Mastodon tooth discovered 

 near Baltimore, the fossil occurs in an ancient bog, covered by 

 a thick bed of sand and diluvium. This is one of the deposits 

 which I have called ancient alluvium, and which seems to 

 belong to some aera of the tertiary period, but what precise 

 epoch is at present quite uncertain. Another set, apparently 

 consisting of the very same species, occurs in the most recent 

 class of bogs and marshes, buried to a very slight depth be- 

 neath the surface. The latter is the situation in which by far 

 the largest number of Mastodon, Elephant, and other bones have 

 been found. These newer bogs or marshes are in no case seen 

 to be covered by any diluvial matter, but appear, on the con- 

 trary, from their low level and their wet state, being often tra- 

 versed by streams, to have experienced little or no change since 

 the fossil relics were originally entombed in them. In the re- 

 gions beyond the AUeghanies, most of these remains occur in 

 spots which are called Salt Licks, which are meadows and 

 swampy grounds where the soil on the surface of the ground 

 is impregnated with muriate of soda, from the springs which 

 empty themselves from the muriatiferous sandstones which 

 abound in the Western States. Big Bone Lick, in Kentucky, is 

 an example of one of these. Here have been found not only vast 

 numbers of the fossil bones of the extinct races, but quantities 

 almost as great of the Buffalo, besides many of two or three 

 species of Deer, now, like the Buffalo, indigenous to the country. 

 This, therefore, would appear to have been resorted to not 

 only in modern times by the living races, but more anciently by 



