THE MASTODON 173 



a perad venture. If scientific men are charged with 

 obstinacy and unwarranted incredulity in declining to 

 accept the testimony so far presented, it must be re- 

 membered that the evidence as to the existence of the 

 sea serpent is far stronger, since it rests on the testimony 

 of eye-witnesses, and yet the creature himself has never 

 been seen by a trained observer, nor has any specimen, 

 not a scale, a tooth, or a bone, ever made its way into 

 any museum. 



The " exception' 7 alluded to above is the discovery of 

 a humerus of Virginia Deer on one side of which is 

 scratched a rude effigy of what unmistakably suggests 

 an elephant. This was discovered by Mr. Jay L. B. 

 Taylor, in April, 1921, in Jacobs Cavern, near Pineville, 

 Missouri. Other engraved bones were found with this, 

 as well as flint implements, the bones being in 

 such condition that some crumbled to pieces in drying, 

 before their condition was realized and steps taken to 

 preserve them. The discovery is described at length, 

 by Mr. Taylor, in Natural History for November- 

 December, 1921. It is hoped to make a careful explora- 

 tion of the cavern during 1922. 



REFERENCES. 



There are at least a dozen mounted skeletons of the Mastodon 

 in the United States, and the writer trusts he may be pardoned for 

 mentioning only those which are most accessible. These are in 

 the American Museum of Natural History, New York, whichnow 

 possesses the famous and practically perfect Warren Mastodon; 

 the Brooklyn Museum; the State Museum, Albany, N. Y.; 

 U. S. National Museum, Washington, D. C.; Field Columbian 

 Museum, Chicago; Carnegie Museum, Pittsburg; Museum of 

 Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, Mass. 



The heaviest pair of tusks is in the possession of T. 0. Tuttle, 

 Seneca, Mich., and they are nine and one-half inches in diameter, 

 and a little over eight feet long; very few tusks, however, reach 

 eight inches in diameter. The thigh-bone of an old male mastodon 



