166 MASTODON REMAINS IX NOVA SCOTIA. PIERS. 



to the eastern bank of the Middle river, and li miles south 

 15 east (true bearings) of the junction of Leonard McLeod 

 brook (Middle River) with the Middle river. Compare 

 Geological Survey of Canada, Xova Scotia map sheet no. 13. 

 (Vide information supplied by Duncan McRae, nephew of the 

 original finder). 



The oldest mention of the bone in a Mechanics' Institute 

 inventory of about 1835, merely gives the locality as "the Island 

 Cape Breton." The earliest label, in Dr. Honeyinan's writ- 

 ing, of about 1870, states it was found at "Middle River, 

 C. B." Honeyman in his Giants and Pigmies (p. 87) says it 

 was ploughed up on the intervale of Walker's farm, at Middle 

 River, about nine miles from its mouth. The McRae farm, 

 however, where the bone was discovered, was never owned by 

 a Walker, nor was there a Walker family settled there. Alex- 

 ander McRae had inherited it from his father, and it is still 

 possessed by McRaes. 



Date of discovery. The femur was found about 1834 or 

 a few years earlier. One of the latest stick-labels on it, 

 in Honeyinan's writing, gives the date as 1842, but this :s 

 an error, as well as his statement in Giants and Pigmies that 

 it was found about forty years before, that is about 1846. The 

 first record I find of it is in a manuscript list of articles in 

 the Halifax Mechanics' Institute (founded in 1831), undated, 

 but written on paper watermarked "1833" and therefore pre- 

 pared approximately about 1835, where it is entered as 

 "Right thighbone of the Fossil Elephant found in the Island 

 Cape Breton, [Presented by] Peter H. Clark, Esq." Then 

 in a manuscript inventory of apparatus, models and specimens 

 in natural history in the museum of the same institution, pre- 

 pared by C. Creed in June, 1839, we find listed the "Femur of 

 fossil Mastodon." An inspection of lists of donations to the 

 Institute, usually given annually in the Nova Scotian news- 

 paper, may fix the date. The late Alfred F. Haliburton, of 



