212 - ANIMALS OF THE PAST 
just done the mammoth, but if any reader 
knows of specimens larger than those noted, 
he should by all means publish their measure- 
ments.* 
The disappearance of the mastodon is as dif- 
ficult to account for as that of the mammoth, 
and, as will be noted, there is absolutely no 
evidence to show that man had any hand in it. 
Neither can it be ascribed to change of climate, 
for the mastodon, as indicated by the wide dis- 
tribution of its bones, was apparently adapted 
to a great diversity of climates, and was as 
much at home amid the cool swamps of Mich- 
igan and New York as on the warm savannas 
of Florida and Louisiana. Certainly the much 
used, and abused, glacial epoch cannot be held 
accountable for the extermination of the creat- 
ure, for the mastodon came into New York 
after the recession of the great ice-sheet, and 
tarried to so late a date that bones buried in 
* As skeletons are sometimes mounted, they stand a full foot 
or more higher at the shoulders than the animal stood in life, 
this being caused by raising the body until the shoulder-blades 
are far below the tips of the vertebra, a position they never as- 
sume in life. 
Fi ia a ee eS 
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