JVutices of Big-bone Lick. 215 



of pyramid, with three -great tusks encircling its base, and sur- 

 mounted by the great head discovered by Mr. Finnell, by ascrib- 

 ing it to the aborigines, who, it was supposed, may have amused 

 themselves by piHng them up in this manner. In that case, it 

 must have been done in some very remote age, to allow time for 

 two distinct beds of soil to have accumulated over them to the 

 height of twenty-five feet, and in a place where these operations 

 are carried on upon so small a scale. But some allowance must 

 be made for the effects of the imagination in those who thought 

 they saw such appearances of order in this ancient charnel house, 

 which, if it really existed, it would be difficult to verify under 

 such circumstances. 



Similar heaps of fo^il bones of elephants and other extinct 

 animals, have been discovered, in several parts of Europe, though 

 it has not been pretended, that they were brought together in 

 this manner. Indeed the human race has been supposed, not to 

 have inhabited the same countries at the epoch of the deposition 

 of these bones. One instance occurred at Selburg, near Canstadt 

 on the Necker, in 1816, where was discovered " a group of thir- 

 teen tusks and some molar teeth, of elephants, heaped close upon 

 each other, as if they had been packed artificially."* Another 

 was at Thiede in Brunswick, in the same year, where a congeries 

 of tusks, teeth, and bones, belonging to the elephant, rhinoceros, 

 horse, ox, and stag, was found in a heap, of ten feet square. 

 There were no less than eleven tusks of elephants, some being of 

 the largest size ever discovered. The appearances they present- 

 ed, as described by Dr. Buckland, were altogether so strikingly 

 similar to those observed in the pit dug at Big-bone Lick, that 

 it is no more than reasonable to ascribe them to the same cause. 



But, at the same time, that we find so much reason to suppose 

 that the great bones, as well as those of the other extinct species, 

 have been brought hither, since the death of the animals, and 

 probably by the agency of water, it does not seem probable that 

 they have been transported from a very great distance. Most 

 of the appearances they afibrd, seem to indicate sudden and 

 violent, but not long continued action. Even the thickest and 

 strongest bones are found, broken short ofFinto several truncheons, 

 but the edges and angles of the fractures are commonly sharp, 

 and not rounded, as much rotting would have made them. The 

 * BucklamJ Rclig. Diluv. p. 180. 



