66 The ]\ est America}! Sa'e?i/is/. 



EPOCH OF THE MASTODON IN NOR TH AMERICA. 



The most interesting of the animals that have recently, (in a 

 geological sense), become extinct, is probably the American 

 mastodon, (Mastodon gigantes) which, in connection with the 

 mammoth, or fossil elephant, (Elephas primigenius) appears to 

 have attained a great numerical development upon this continent 

 at about the close of the Pleistocene, or the commencement of 

 the Post-tertiary epoch. Geologists are enabled to determine 

 with certainty the age at which these colossal herbiverous ani- 

 mals existed in this country, fiom the circumstance that their 

 bones are found in a partially petrified or sub-fossil state, in 

 superficial deposits, lying above the drift formation, as for exam- 

 ple in peat-bogs or the mud and marl deposits of existing ponds 

 and lakes, the origin of which, it seems, cannot extend far back 

 of the introduction of man upon this continent. Some have 

 thought that the mastodons and mammoths did not become 

 entirely extinct in this country until after the advent of man, and 

 find a support for their opinion in various traditions of the North 

 American Indians, which represent their ancestors as warring 

 against certain colossal animals, which are described as tree- 

 eaters, and as never lying down, but leaning against a tree when 

 they slept. Sir Charles Lyell, however, after a review of all the 

 facts in the case, has arrived at the opinion that the period of the 

 extinction of the mastodon, although geologically modern, must 

 have been many thousand years ago. Judging from the dis- 

 tribution of their bones the mastodons appear to have existed 

 most numerously in the valleys oi the Ohio and Mississippi, and 

 from thence to have roamed as far to the northeast as New York 

 and New England. Their remains, however, have been but 

 rarely found in New England, and it has been conjectured that 

 the Hudson river may have acted as a barrier to their migrations. 

 The mammoth, or fossil elephant, appears to have roamed over 

 the same territories contemporaneously with the mastodon, but 

 in much smaller numbers. In the western States the bones of 

 these animals are found most commonly in the low places around 

 the salt-lick spots, that are still frequented by deer and other 

 wild animals that come to lick up the saline waters. At one 

 such locality in Kentucky, known as the "Big Bone Lick" 

 about twenty miles south west from Cincinnati, it is esitmated 

 that the bones of one hundred mastodons and twenty mam- 

 moths have been dug up together with the bones of the mega- 

 lonyx, buffalo, deer and other animals. The most complete skele- 

 tons of the mastodons have, however, been found in swamps and 

 peat-bogs,in which the animals were probably accidently mired and 

 suffocated- The finest and largest skeleton in existence was dis- 

 covered by some laborers engaged in digging marl from a swamp 

 in Newburg, N. J., in the summer of 1845. It occupied a stand- 

 ing position, with the head raised aud turned to one side and the 



