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234 



APPENDIX. 



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,' the depth of two feet or morej as close as the stones of a pavement, an 

 beaten. down by the succeeding herds as to make it difficult to lift them from 

 • their bed.. .. : . , " . .- .._.■■:".„ 



L As will be seen from the accompanying diagram^ there seems to have been 

 .some degradation of the surface of this swamp after the deposition of many 



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;of the mastodon remains^ and before the coming of the buffalo. This lower- 

 ing of level was apparently consequent on the erosion of the bed of the 

 small creek that drains the valley. The old elevated beds had probably 

 ^washed a good deal when the buffalo came, but it was principally by its 

 .w^allowing and stamping that the bones of the mastodon, elephants, &c., were 

 exposed to the air,* At no point in this old ground did I find a trace of the 

 buffalo, though in some of it the bones identified by Mr. Allen as belong- 

 ing to Ovibos were found. There, too, were found the bones of the moose 



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jind caribou. I am inclined to believe from these investif>:ations that the 



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Bison americantis did not appear at Big Bone Lick until a very recent time. 



All the observations made by the Kentucky Survey in the caverns of the 

 State, and the neighboring district of Tennessee, have led to the discovery 

 of no bison remains in these subterranean receptacles, where the bones of the 

 beaver, deer, wolf, bear, and many other mammals have been discovered. The 

 observation, of the officers of the Survey to be published hereafter will show 

 that our caves have been used as the homes of the living and the receptacles 

 of the dead by more than one of the earlier tribes of this region, but they 

 seem never to have brought the bones of this animal to the caves. 



Some j^ears ago I ventured to call attention to the general absence of the 

 xeraains of this animal in all the mounds of the historic or prehistoric races, 

 and to the fact that on their pipes and pottery, though they figure every 

 other indigenous mammal and some of the birds of this region, seeking their 

 models even in the manitee of Florida, I have never been able to find any 

 trace of buffalo bones in any of the mounds which so often contain bones 



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of other animals, nor have I been able to ascertain that they have ever been 

 found in such places. At an ancient camping-ground on the Ohio Eiver, 

 about twelve miles above Cincinnati, where the remains are covered by allu- 

 vial soil of apparently some antiquity, and where the pottery (hereafter to be 

 figured in the Memoirs of the Survey) is rather more ancient in character 

 than that made by our modern Indians, I found bones of deer, elk, bear, fox, 

 &c., but none of buffixlo. At a number of other old camps on the Ohio Eiver 



* For the habits of the buffalo in this regard, see the preceding Memoir of Mr. Allen, p. 64, et seq. 



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