ILLVSTRATtOXS. 74 



health, while he could enrith his lands so much more readily and cheaply by 

 the use of plaister of Paris or gypsum, as before explained. Within a circle, 

 the radius of which does not exceed six miles, there are several hundred acres of 

 marl ; a very small proportion of this has been explored or dug to the bottom, 

 where the fossil bones have uniformly been discovered. By the force of theii 

 own weight, they have naturally sunk through the soft substance and found rest 

 many feet below, on solid or harder ground. And yet within the periphery of this 

 circle, nine skeletons of these prodigious animals have been discovered ! It may 

 certainly be safely computed, that not one hundredth part has been explored to 

 the bottom. If then, so many have been found in 30 small a proportion of this 

 mammoth ground ; and admitting that there has been gre.it good fortune in fall 

 ing upon their place of rest, does it not afford a most reasonable hypothesis to 

 say, that there are vast numbers of these natural curiosities deposited here for 

 future discoveries j and that at some period our country (in this district) was ful- 

 ly inhabited by this stupendous animal. 



The discoveries being altogether in a particular kind and character of ground 

 afford reasonable inferences as to the nature and appetites of the animal. Tb,e 

 formation and the quantities of marl and other productions, furnish also int< 

 resting calculations in chronology. 



Anterior to the substances and productions now occupying the$e places, they 

 have been covered by slieets of stagnant waters. These have afforded a vari- 

 ety of herbage and grass, which delight in water and wet soils and have abound 

 ed in different species of shell and other fishes. The various genera and speciis 

 of amphibious animals, which were known to have been common to au uninhab- 

 ited or uncivilized country, have had their residence in these tracts of wild and. 

 savage wildernesses. 



The graminivorous, or carnivorous, appetites of the non descript could ha*^ 

 found an early or rich repast in these particular places ; where the voracious 

 cravings of hunger may have urged him in the pursuit, arrested by quagmires, 

 and terminating, in death ! 



My reflections on these subjects may appear chimerical and visioaary ; but a 

 full knowledge of the facts I relate, careful and candid reflections, under all the 

 circumstances accompanying these phenomena, have led me to a firm and unalter- 

 able opinion, that tnese animals were once common in this country ; that in num- 

 bers, they equalled the other beasts of the forest ; such as the fcear, the wolf, 

 the panther, c;c. &c. in the proportion which larger animals bear to the smaller, 

 ia the order of nature. Should my opinion be reasonable, and founded ic faot 

 it leads the mind to a variety of astonishing and curious results ! 



Why, in the dispensations of an overruling providence, should these animal? 

 ofl^e bare been created, and ejsisted in vast numbers, now fee extiort ? ar, at aU 



