170 ANIMALS OF THE PAST 



bones in a spring at Afton, Indian Territory. This 

 spring was investigated, and a few mastodon bones and 

 flint arrowheads were found, but the latter were in a 

 stratum just above the bones, although this was over- 

 looked by the first diggers. 1 Koch reported finding char- 

 coal and arrowheads so associated with mastodon bones 

 that he inferred the animal to have been destroyed by 

 fire and arrows after it became mired. It has been said 

 that Koch could have had no object in disseminating 

 this report, and hence that it may be credited, but he 

 had just as much interest in doing this as he did in 

 fabricating the Hydrarchus and the Missourium, and 

 his testimony is not to be considered seriously. It 

 seems to be with the mastodon much as it is with the 

 sea-serpent; the latter never appears to a naturalist, 

 remains of the former are never found by a trained 

 observer associated with indications of the presence of 

 man. Perhaps an exception should be made in the case 

 of Professor J. M. Clarke, who found fragments of 

 charcoal in a deposit of muck under some bones of 

 mastodon. 



We may pass by the so-called " Elephant Mound," 

 which to the eye of an unimaginative observer looks as 

 if it might have been intended for any one of several 

 beasts; also, with bated breath and due respect for the 

 bitter controversy waged over them, pass we by the 

 elephant pipes. There remains, then, with an excep- 

 tion to be noted, not a bit of man's handiwork, not a 

 piece of pottery, engraved stone, or scratched bone that 

 can unhesitatingly be said to have been wrought into 



: This locality was carefully investigated by Mr. W. H. Holmes of the 

 United States National Museum who found bones of the mastodon and 

 Southern Mammoth associated with arrowheads. But he also found 

 fresh bones of bison, horse, and wolf, showing that these and the arrow- 

 heads had simply sunk to the level of the older deposit. 



