276 DAVKNPORT ACADKMV OF' NATURAL SlIKNCES. 



First. We find, in the transactions of tlie St. Louis Academy of Sciences, in 

 1857, a detailed statement, by Dr. .\. C. Koch, of the remains of a mastodon found 

 in Gasconade County, Missouri, and with it, among ashes," bones, and rocks, several 

 arrow-heads and some stone axes, which relics are preserved. in the British Museum. 



Second. Dr. Dickson, of Natchez, many years ago, found the pelvic bone of a 

 man with the remains of mastodon and megalonyx, which sjjecimens are preserved 

 •n the museum of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences. 



Third. Count Pourtales, in 1848, found in Florida some human bones in a 

 calcareous conglomerate, estimated by Agassiz to be ten thousand years old. Pour- 

 tales will be remembered as the friend and favorite pupil of the great naturalist. 



Fourth. In an excavation in New Orleans, some charcoal and a human skeleton 

 were discovered to wjiich Dr. Dowler attributes an antiquity of no less than fifty 

 thousand years. This estimate was based upon the deposits and forests found above 

 the remains, and as connected with this question was the age of the'delta of the 

 Mississippi, it may be stated that this has been estimated by Sir Charles Lyell as 

 probably reaching one hundred thousand years. 



Fifth. In 1857, Dr. C. F. Winslow sent the Boston Natural History Society 

 the fragment of a human cranium, found, in connection with the bones of the mas- 

 todon and elephant, one hundred and eighty feet below tlie surface of Table Moun- 

 tain. 



.Sixth. Prof. Whitney deposited in the museum of the State Geological Society 

 of California a human cranium, discovered deep down in the gold drift, and cov- 

 ered with five successive overflows of lava. 



Seventh. T. T. Cleu contributed to the Smithsonian Institution a specimen of 

 ancient basket-work, or "mat made of interlaced reeds," found on Petit Anse 

 Island, some fifteen or twenty feet below the surface, and on a bed of rock-salt, 

 and about two feet above it, were the remains of the tusks and bones of a fossil 

 elephant. This '■'■tnaf'' is nou< in the National Museum, at Washington.* 



Eighth. In 1867, E. W. Hilgard and Dr. E. Fontaine, Secretary of the New 

 Orleans Academy of Sciences, explored the location last above referred to, and dis- 

 covered, twelve feet below the surface and immediately adjoining the rock-salt, in- 

 credible quantities of pottery mingled with fragments of the bones of the elephant. 



* Prof . Henry, late Secretiir}' of the Smithsonian Institution, affi.xed to this remarkable relic 

 in the National Museum the following- interesting sketch: "Petit Anse Island is the local- 

 ity of the remarkable mine of rock salt, discovered durinsif the civil war, and from which, for a 

 considerable time, the Southern Slates derived a jjreat part of their supply of this article. The 

 salt is almost chemically i)ure, ajjparently inexhaustible in quantity, occurring- in every part of 

 tlie island (which i.s about five thousand acres in extent), at a depth below the surface of the soil 

 of fifteen or twentv feet. The fragment of matting was found near the surface of the salt, and 

 about two feet above it were remains of tusks and bones of a fossil elephant. The peculiar 

 interest in regard to the specimen is in its occurrence in situ two feet below the elephant re- 

 mains, and about fourteen feet below the surface of the soil, thus showing the existence of man 

 on the island prior to the deposit in the soil of the fossil elephant. The material consists of the 

 outer bark of the common southern cane {AninJinaria niacrosperiiia), and has been preserved 

 for so long a period both by its silicious character and the strongly saline condition of the soil." 

 It thus appears that Prof. Henry regarded this relic as furnishing valuable evidence of the co- 

 e.\istence of man and the mastodon on this continent. (" The Archieological Collection of the 

 United States .Museum, in charge of the Smithsonian Institution," by Charles Rau, ".Smithso- 

 nian Contributions to Knowledge," Xo. 2S7, p. 89.) 



