378 DR ROCK'S STATEMENT. 



" This," he asserts, " was sufficiently proven by the 

 situation in which he found as well there those parts of 

 the bones which had been untouched by the fire as those 

 which were more or less injured by it, or in part con 

 sumed ; for he found the fore and hind legs of the animal in 

 a perpendicular position in the clay, with the toes attach 

 ed to the feet, in just the same manner in which they were 

 at the moment when life departed from the body. He took 

 particular care, in uncovering these bones, to ascertain 

 their position beyond any doubt, before he removed 

 any part of them ; and it appeared, during the whole ex 

 cavation, fully evident, that at the time when the animal 

 in question found its untimely end, the ground in which 

 it had been mired must have been in a plastic condition, 

 being now a greyish coloured clay. All the bones which 

 had not been burned by the fire had kept their original 

 position, standing upright and apparently quite undis 

 turbed in the clay ; whereas those portions which had been 

 exposed above the surface had been partially consumed 

 by the fire, and the surface of the clay was covered, as far 

 as the fire had extended, by a layer of wood ashes, min 

 gled with larger or smaller pieces of charred wood and 

 burnt bones, together with bones belonging to the spine, 

 ribs, and other parts of the body, which had been more or 

 less injured by the fire. The fire appeared to have been 

 most destructive around the head of the animal. Some 

 small remains of the head were left, unconsumed, but 

 enough to show that they belonged to the mastodon. 

 There were also found mingled with these ashes and bones, 

 and partly protruding out of them, a large number of 

 broken pieces of rock, which had evidently been carried 

 thither from the shore of the Bourbeuse river, to be hurl 

 ed at the animal by his destroyers ; for the above-men- 



