112 DAVENPOET ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. 



We will leave the upper animal out of consideration, though he has a 

 true flap ear like the elephant ; the correctness of his drawing seems to 

 have been spoiled by the nearness of the bison, the outlines of whose 

 body are repeated in him. Now, taking the lower animal, and measur- 

 ing him, we find the following dimensions, viz : Length of body, 45 milli- 

 metres : height, 41 m. ; length of tail, 13 m. ; diameter of fore leg (near 

 the body), 6 m. ; diameters of hind leg (near the body), 8 m. Now, 

 assuming the height as 10 feet, we have a length of 11 feet, a length of 

 tail of 3 feet, diameter of the fore and hind legs, respectively, of li and 

 2 feet— truly a very elephant-like proportion. But the trunk and the 

 tusks are omitted. Well, so are the eye and the ear, yet, nevertheless, 

 we contend that no animal but an elephant has such proportions, such a 

 contour of the back, such legs and such a tail. 



The statement of the following fact may not be amiss in this connec- 

 tion : The modern Indians, though generally very accurate in details, 

 sometimes purposely omitted important features of an animal, as, for 

 instance, the horns of the elk, when representing the head of that ani- 

 mal. Examples of this are to be found in Schoolcraft. 



Again, in that otherwise truthful delineation of the mastodon, the ele- 

 phant mound of Wisconsin, the artist has totally omitted the tusks, and 

 shortened the trunk to very modest dimensions. Surely, not for want of 

 space, for the whole animal has a length of over one hundred (100) feet 

 and a proportionate height. 



Anyhow, we will assume this animal to be the mastodon, or, at least, a 

 good enough mastoddn for our purpose, and proceed to treat of the last 

 portion of our subject, the contemporaneous existence of man on this 

 continent. We will consider the evidence on that subject, seriatim, as 

 nearly as possible in the order, in point of time, that it was brought to 

 light by publication. 



First, we have the Indian tradition, as narrated by Jefferson in his 

 " Notes on Virginia," written about 1794, and in answer to an inquiry of 

 a gentleman in France. Jefferson says : " Our quadrupeds have been 

 mostly described by Linnaeus and Monsieur de Buffon. Of these the 

 mammoth or big buffalo, as called by the Indians, must certainly have 

 been the largest. Their tradition is, that he was carniverous, and still 

 exists in the northern parts of America. 



•'A delegation of warriors from the Delaware tribe, having visited the 

 Governor of Virginia during the Eevolution, on matters of business, 

 after these had been discussed and settled in council, the Governor asked 

 them some questions relative to their country, and among others, what 

 they knew or had heard of the animals whose bones were found at the 

 salt licks on the Ohio (Big Bone Lick, Kentucky). Their chief imme- 

 diately put himself into an attitude of oratory, and with a pomp suited 

 to>vhat he conceived the elevation of the subject, informed him that it 

 was a tradition handed down from their fathers. That in ancient times 

 a herd of these tremendous animals came to the Big Bone Licks and be- 

 gan an universal destruction of the bear, deer, elks, buffaloes, and other 



