JVolices of Big-hone Lick. 211 



tusks, and intermingled with all these a large quantity of teeth 

 and bones, of various animals, " They altogether formed," says 

 Mr. Bullock, '• a heterogeneous mass, lying horizontally, mixed 

 with angular and waterworn pieces of limestone of various sizes, 

 which contain marine shells, and rounded specimens of quartzose 

 and other pebbles, as well as fragments of cane, small, unknown 

 to me, and also fragments of broken fresh-water shells, much re- 

 sembling those now living in the neighbourhood." I have been 

 moreover informed, that immediately beneath the great bones, 

 the workmen came to a bed of stiff blue clay, in which, except at 

 its surface, no bones were found. This agrees with my own obser- 

 vations and all the accounts I have heard, except Goforth's, ac- 

 cording to whom, the great bones were partly found beneath the 

 blue clay. I saw, it is true, the entire skeleton o( a. buffalo, with 

 part of two others, dug out of the blue clay, where it is found im- 

 mediately at the surface. But there were no remains of the ex- 

 tinct animals, either with these or under the clay, which I saw 

 penetrated down to a dry stony layer of a kind of marl. The 

 buffaloes appeared to have sunk or been trampled into the clay, 

 while soft from the effects of rain or floods. 



The great inequality of the ground near the spring, is the 

 principal cause why some were obliged to dig twenty-two feet 

 before finding bones of the large species, while others met with 

 them at eleven, four, two feet, or even less. The surface of the 

 island, for example, is much higher than that of the point, on the 

 north of it; and this, than the bed of the stream; so that by digging 

 two feet in one place, we would reach the same level that we 

 would by digging twenty feet, not many yards further off 



The position of the bones, fossil and recent, such as I have de- 

 termined it from the comparison of the foregoing accounts, with 

 my own observations made at the place, shall be now described. 



The substratum of the neighbouring country, is a limestone, 

 abounding in organic remains. This appears at the surface on 

 the sides and tops of the hills, and along the banks of the great 

 rivers. From it must have been derived the fragments mention- 

 ed in Mr. Bullock's account, as found accompanying the great 

 bones. But at this lick, the valley is filled up to the depth of not 

 less, generally, than thirty feet, with unconsolidated beds of earth 

 of various kinds. The uppermost of these consists of a light yel- 

 low clay, which, apparently, is no more than the soil brought 



