GKOLOGY. 27 



trees*, which has on it, evident marks of an axe, or of some 

 other sharp edged tool. From its appearance, since the axe 

 was applied to it, this fragment must have lain many, very many 

 centuries in the earth, where it was interred four feet below 

 the present surface. There can be but little doubt, that the 

 axe used, was owned by one of the people, who erected the an- 

 cient works here. The whole prairie was once a cedar swamp ; 

 and from undoubted sources of information, avc are satisfied that 

 many of our wet prairies were once cedar swamps also. Near 

 Royalton, in Fairfield county, and in several places in the west- 

 ern part of Pickaway county ; and, also in Warren county, sim- 

 ilar proofs of the former existence of cedar groves in wet prai- 

 ries, have been discovered. Time, and the accumulation of a 

 deep soil, on the former surface, have made these prairies what 

 they are. 



We have seen the bones of deer and other animals reposing 

 on the ancient surface of these natural meadows; and we con- 

 fidently expect to be able to find here, in great numbers, the 

 bones of the great mastodon of Cuvier. The bones of that 

 animal, found near Jackson Court House, in this State, were 

 discovered on the ancient surface of a wet prairie. A tooth in 

 my possession, disinterred in the bank of "Plum run," three 

 miles west of me, was discovered in a situation exactly similar. 

 Many persons seem to have adopted the idea, that the mam- 

 moths found in such places, were mired there and thus lost their 

 lives. That individuals of that family, might have thus died, 

 no one will pretend to doubt; but all the remains of that ani- 

 mal, discovered in Ohio, so far as we know, seem to have be- 

 longed to such as died a natural death ; their bones having been 

 scattered about in confusion, in a manner entirely similar to 

 those of our domestic animals which die of old age or disease. 

 I know of no skeleton of that animal's being found in this state, 

 though parts of them, especially the teeth, are very often dis- 

 covered. They are washed out of the banks of small streams, 

 passing through wet prairies. The teeth of the animal being 



* This specimen was deposited in Lelton's P.Iuseiim, Cincinnati. 



