168 JOSSIL FAfNA. 



PLATE LXXIY. —contimed. 



" The greater numbers both of the entire skeletons and the separate bones have been taken 

 up from black mud, about twelve feet below the level of the Creek. It is supposed that the 

 bones of the mastodons found here could not have belonged to less than one hundred individuals : 

 those of the fossil Elephant {Elephas primigenius) to twenty ; besides which a few bones of the 

 Megalonyx, and of a species of stag, horse, and bison, are stated to have been collected. The 

 greatest depth of the black mud has not been ascertained ; it is composed chiefly of clay, with 

 a mixtiu'e of calcareous matter and sand, and contains 5 parts in 100 of sulphate of lime, with 

 some animal matter. Layers of gravel occur in the midst of it at various depths. It contains 

 remains of seeds, and of several species and genera of fresh-water and terrestrial shells. It 

 is impossible to view this plain without at once concluding that it has remained unchanged 

 in all its principal features, from the period when the extinct quadrupeds inhabited the banks 

 of the Ohio and its tributaries. 



" There are two buffalo paths or trails still extant in the woods, and both lead directly 

 to springs : the one which strikes off in a northerly direction from the Gum Lick, may be traced 

 eastward through the forest for several miles. It is three or four yards wide, and only partially 

 overgrown with grass, and sixty years ago was as bare, hard, and well trodden, as a high road. 

 It is well known that during great droughts in the Pampas of South America, the horses, deer, 

 and cattle, throng to the rivers in such numbers, that the foremost of the crowd are pushed into 

 the stream by the pressure of others behind, and are sometimes carried away by thousands, 

 and drowned. In their eagerness to drink the saline waters and lick the salt, the heavy 

 mastodons and elephants seem in like manner to have pressed upon each other, and sunk in the 

 soft quagmires of Kentucky."' 



' Extracted from Sir Charles Lyell's " Travels in North America," vol. ii. chap. xvii. 1845. 



