376 MASTODONS OF NEW-YORK. 



I visited the tract situated near the Wallkili in the 

 spring of 1817 ; and it was ray fortune to assist in the dis- 

 interment of a mammoth. 



On the 27th of May, I was at the house of Anthony Da- 

 vis, Esq. in the village of Chester, near Goshen in Orange 

 county, N. Y. Silvanus Miller, Esq. Peter S. Townsend, 

 M. D. and Dr. Miller Wharry, had accompanied me 

 there. We were met by Peter Townsend, Esq. of New- 

 burgh, Dr. T. Seely, and by Messrs. William and Isaac 

 Townsend, of Chester. During the evening the convex 

 sation turned upon mammoth bones ; and Mr. Yelverton, 

 who came in, said he knew where some of them lay, at the 

 bottom of a ditch on his brother's farm, in the neighbour- 

 hood, dug by himself, nine or ten years before. In the 

 morning I encouraged him to conduct us to the spot, and 

 in a few minutes after the arrival of our company on the 

 ground, he discovered the bones with an exploring rod. 



The water of this small meadow had been 

 drawn off by ditching. The soil had settled down ; 

 the cedar trees had died ; the surface had been 

 stubbed and smoothed ; and it had been converted into 

 a neat field of meadow pasture. The grassy sward was 

 underlaid by about six feet of black peat, or fine vege- 

 table inflammable matter. The sward and turf were 

 about four feet thick over the bones. Beneath them, and 

 immediately around them, was a stratum of coarse vege- 

 table stems and films resembling chopped straw, or rather 

 drift-stuff of the sea ; for it seemed to be mixed with bro- 

 ken films of conferva, like those of the Atlantic shore. 



It must be remarked also, notwithstanding the occur- 

 rence of marl, in the holes or ponds, that the snails and 

 other creatures from whose shells marl is formed, do not 



