22 2 EXTINCT MONSTERS. 



these accounts refer to tufts of hair — in one case three inches 

 long. 



The great skeleton of Mastodon americanus already referred 

 to was purchased by the trustees of the British Museum, of 

 Mr. Albert Koch, a well-known collector of fossil remains, who 

 had exhibited it in the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, in 1842 and 

 1843, under the name of " the Missouri Leviathan," an enormous 

 and ill-constructed monster, made up of the bones of this 

 skeleton, together with many belonging to other individuals, in 

 such a way as to horrify an anatomist and appeal all the more 

 forcibly to the imagination of the public. From this hetero- 

 geneous assemblage of bones those belonging to the same animal 

 have now been selected and articulated in their proper places. 

 The height of this specimen is nine feet and a half, and the total 

 length about eighteen feet. 



According to Mr. Koch, the remains exhibited by him were 

 found in alluvial deposits on the banks of a small tributary 

 of the Osage River, in Benton County, Missouri. The bones 

 were embedded in a brown, sandy deposit, full of vegetable 

 matter, in which were recognised remains of the cypress, tropical 

 cane, swamp moss, etc., and this was covered by blue clay and 

 gravel to a thickness of about fifteen feet. Mr. Koch personally 

 assured Dr. Mantell that an Indian flint arrow-head was found 

 beneath the leg-bones of this skeleton, and that four similar 

 weapons were embedded in the same stratum. He declared that 

 he took them out of the bed with his own hands. 



In the Pier-case (No. 38), near the Mastodon americanus, may 

 be seen fifteen heads and jaws, together with other parts of the 

 skeleton, mostly obtained from the same locality, but some of 

 them came from the " Big Bone Lick," Kentucky. 



A fine specimen, obtained from a marsh near Newburgh, by 

 Dr. Warren, measured eleven feet in height, and seventeen in 

 length, while the tusks were nearly ten feet long, not including 

 the portion in the long sockets of the cranium. Twenty-six 

 species of Mastodon are known. 



