512 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVII. No. 430. 



mammotli. Continued labor recovered from 

 the bed of gravel below a large part of the 

 skeleton, all beautifully preserved. This 

 aroused a great deal of excitement in that 

 region. While the curiosity of the people 

 was at white heat, a showman bought the 

 skeleton for a thousand dollars, and put it 

 under canvas for public exhibition. I after- 

 ward met this gentleman, who offered the 

 specimen, securely packed for transportation 

 at San Prancisco, for a few hundred dollars. 

 I wrote to Professor E. D. Cope, in whose 

 employ I was, giving him all the particulars, 

 and address of the possessor, whose name I 

 have now forgotten. On the strength of the 

 information given me by the surgeon, I re- 

 solved to conduct an expedition to the Pine 

 Creek region. I left Port Walla Walla some- 

 time in January, 1878. At Moscow, Idaho, T 

 secured the services of Joe Huff, who fur- 

 nished a team and wagon. We pressed on 

 through Colfax to Pine Creek (it heads in 

 the high hills not far from where we came 

 to it, at a stockade that had been built to 

 protect the settlers from Indians a few years 

 before; we made our permanent camp here), 

 and spent most of our time until April, when 

 we started for the John Day region, in eastern 

 Oregon. The mouth of the spring we ex- 

 plored was only two feet above the creek. 

 To add to our discomfort, it rained nearly 

 every day; but with unfailing enthusiasm we 

 bailed mud and water week after week. The 

 larger we got the excavation, the more water 

 to bail out. In enlarging the pit we found 

 the walls of the spring were composed first of 

 a thick bed of peat, then a stratum of com- 

 pact yellow clay, then gravel, in which the 

 bones were deposited, about twelve feet below 

 the surface. In spite of our strenuous labors, 

 we were only rewarded with the discovery 

 of a number of fine skulls of the buffalo. In 

 one we found a flint arrow-point and bones 

 of the skeleton. The farmer-fossil-hunters 

 had been more fortunate. The so-called 

 ' mud-springs ' in this region often cover 

 acres of swamp land along the upper reaches 

 of Pine Creek. They usually have a circular 

 outline, and are full of thick mud; in wet 

 weather they are in a state resembling ebulli- 



tion. In very dry weather they are covered 

 with a crust of di-ied mud that is cracked in 

 all directions. These crusts not being strong 

 enough to support much weight, they become 

 death traps to the animals that attempt to 

 cross them. Many of the farmers' animals 

 were lost in them. On March 1, 18Y8, I met 

 Mr. Copeland for the first time. He told me 

 he had taken nine specimens of the mammoth 

 from the swamp on his ranch. These, as I 

 remember, he had deposited in a college in 

 Porest Grove, Oregon. He discovered a flint 

 spear-point in the gravel above the mammoth 

 bones, associated with charred and partly 

 petrified wood that bore the marks of tools 

 upon it, also deer, buffalo and bird bones. 

 On March 2 we went with Mr. Copeland to 

 see the springs on the Donahue brothers' 

 ranch up Pine Creek. Here the swamp cov- 

 ered seven or eight acres, and the owners had 

 made large excavations. I was told they had 

 recovered a large number of elephant remains. 

 I found on the dump a few elephant bones, 

 with those of the buffalo, deer, etc. I do not 

 remember what became of the specimens dis- 

 covered by these gentlemen. Although I did 

 not actually find elephant bones mingled with 

 the buffalo we found so common iia our spring, 

 I never doubted, from what I saw and heard 

 at the other excavations in the innnediate 

 neighborhood, and where the collectors went 

 through the same kind of peat, clay and gravel 

 as we had gone through, that man, the buffalo, 

 elephant and many existing species once lived 

 together in eastern Wa.shington. It seems to 

 me these swamps should receive careful atten- 

 tion from paleontologists. A systematic series 

 of explorations here may give valuable in- 

 formation of early man and the animals with 

 whom he associated. 



The skull of Elephas Golumbi above re- 

 ferred to is now in the collection of the Amer- 

 ican Museum of Natural Plistory, with other 

 fossils of the Cope collection. 



Charles H. Sternberg. 



herbaria forjiationum ooloradensium ; f. e. 

 et e. s. clements. 



One of the phases of botany now in active 

 advance both in this country and abroad is 



