210 ANIMALS OF THE PAST 
an eddy beneath the bluff. Or as the place 
abounds in springs of sulphur and salt water 
it may be that this was where the animals 
assembled during cold weather, just as the 
moas are believed to have gathered in the 
swamps of New Zealand, and here the weaker 
died and left their bones. 
The mastodon must have looked very much 
like any other elephant, though a little shorter 
in the legs and somewhat more heavily built 
than either of the living species, while the 
head was a trifle flatter and the jaw decidedly 
longer. The tusks are a variable quantity, 
sometimes merely bowing outwards, often 
curving upwards to form a half circle; they 
were never so long as the largest mammoth 
tusks, but to make up for this they were a 
shade stouter for their length. As the masto- 
don ranged well to the north it is fair to sup- _ 
pose that he may have been covered with long 
hair, a supposition that seems to be borne out 
by the discovery, noted by Rembrandt Peale, of 
a mass of long, coarse, woolly hair buried in one 
of the swamps of Ulster County, New York. 
And with these facts in mind, aided by photo- 
