preserved remains of various extinct animals — some of prodigious 

 size and proportions, representing the animal life of remote ages. 

 Many of these have been exhumed and placed in form with scientific 

 skill and now enrich the collections of our principal museums. 

 These discoveries reveal facts, and suggest truths which have greatly 

 advanced the scientific wisdom of the age. Their frequent occur- 

 rence throughout the land has led to the adoption of more critical 

 methods in dealing with the evidences adduced, and aside from dim 

 tradition, it is now asserted, from the remains of Mastodons unques- 

 tionably more recent, that primitive man and these huge probos- 

 cidians were contemporary. This is one of the problems of the human 

 race which has found its solution here. The contemplation of this 

 fact awakens the most sublime reflections, and we close this brief 

 sketch by quoting the eloquent thoughts of John D. Godman, of 

 Philadelphia, a celebrated physician and naturalist of the last 

 century: 



"The emotions experienced when, for the first time, we behold 

 the giant remains of this great animal, are those of unmingled awe. 

 We cannot avoid reflecting on the time when this huge frame was 

 clothed with its peculiar integuments and moved by appropriate 

 muscles — when the mighty heart dashed forth its torrents of blood 

 through vessels of enormous caliber, and the Mastodon strode along 

 in supreme dominion over every other tenant of the wilderness. 

 However we examine what is left to us, we cannot help feeling that 

 this animal must have been endowed with a strength exceeding that 

 of other quadrupeds as much as it exceeded them in size, and looking 

 at its ponderous jaws, armed with teeth peculiarly formed for most 

 effectually crushing the firmest substances, we are assured that its 

 life could only be supported by the destructon of vast quantities of 

 food. 



"Enormous as were these creatures during life, and endowed 

 with faculties proportioned to the bulk of their frames, the whole 

 race has been extinct for ages. No human record of their existence 

 has been saved, and but for the accidental preservation of its bones, 

 we never should have dreamed that a creature of such vast size and 

 strength once existed, nor could we have believed that such a race 

 had been extinguished forever. Such, however, is the fact — ages after 

 ages have rolled away, empires and nations have arisen, flourished and 

 sunk into oblivion while the bones of the Mastodon, which perished 

 long before the period of their origin, have been discovered scarcely 

 changed in color and exhibiting all the marks of durability. 



"That a race of animals so large, and consisting of so many 

 species, should become entirely, and so universally extinct, is a cir- 

 cumstance of high interest, for it is not with the Mastodon as with 



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