520 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE, 
this diameter was a light spongy, peaty humus, containing the mastodon bones: 
and pieces of wood resembling cypress. A fine gray sand occurred at the bottom 
and bright blue sand would boil up toward the top. Only in this funnel-shaped 
space of fifteen feet in diameter at top were found the mastodon remains, occurring 
from three to eight feet in depth and including fragments of both large and small 
individuals, and in number about eight skeletons. Perfect heads, with the teeth 
attached, were obtained. The tusks were much broken. Other bones, both of 
the leg and ribs, were obtained, and also vertebree. The largest tusks indicated 
about seven feet length, the hollow portions of which were filled with black clay. 
Some of the older teeth were nearly entire, while those of younger individuals 
were much worn. Some jaws show young teeth in front of old ones, as if shed- 
ding and replacing others. The jaws had from two to four teeth on a side, some 
2 inches square to 44%4x8. A jaw with only two teeth has one of them 4x8 inches, 
the other 4x34%4 inches. The largest tusk observed was about five inches in diam- 
eter at large end, the whole gently curved. A few flint implements (spear heads), 
and one stone club were found with the bones. 
Mr. Blair has preserved the remains, and placed them in cases so they can 
be well seen. His is the Mastodon Americanus cuvier. 
Dr. Albert Koch was the first person who made explorations by digging 
for mastodon remains in Missouri. In 1839 he exhumed certain bones from a 
spring on the Bourbeuse river, in Gasconade county, Missouri. Dr. K. thought 
these bones had been partially burned; this, however, has been disbelieved by 
others, so it remains in doubt. Arrow heads of flint, and stone axes, were also 
found. In the material at the bottom, which Dr. K. considered ashes, there was 
much gravel, above this was eight feet of clay and sand, from which flowed the 
spring and in which lay the bones. 
About 1840 Dr. Koch dug out the bones of another mastodon, in the valley of 
Pomme de Terre river, ten miles southwest of Warsaw. Dr. K. states that an 
arrow head was here found beneath the thigh bone of the animal. With them 
was also found fragments of wood and roots, with logs and cones of the cypress, 
together with flint implements. The bones were overlaid by distinct layers of 
clay, sand and gravel, to the thickness of twenty feet, which sustained above a 
growth of old trees. 
Lay, in his history of Benton county, speaks of these bones and states that 
they have been found in two places in the county; one on the farm of the heirs 
of Charles Wickliffe, on the Osage, the other near the farm of Alexander Brashears, 
on the Big Pomme de Terre. From the Wickliffe farm nearly a whole skeleton 
was taken to Cincinnati, of which a tusk was said to be nine feet long. Other 
bones were also obtained at the same place. 
The Messrs. Bradley, of Boone county, kept fifteen or twenty hands at work 
for several months on the Brashears place, and took out a great many bones. But 
they were so much decomposed, that after exposure they fell to pieces, and the 
men lost money by the venture. | 
