522 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
The Wheaton mastodon, found in Du Page county, Illinois, was obtained 
four feet below the surface in a boggy place. It was probably 14 feet in height 
and 20 feet long. 
From Big Bone Lick, Boone county, Ky., it is said that fragments of one 
hundred skeletons of the mastodon have been exhumed. It is a fact connected 
with the occurrence of these bones, as well as those found on the Osage and in 
all boggy places, that they seem as if the animals had come there to drink or lick, 
and had stuck in the mud so as to be unable to extricate themselves. To this fact 
science is indebted for the excellent state of preservation in which the remains 
occur. 
In various parts of North America we find marshy tracts abounding in salt 
or brackish waters, which, during the present generation, are much resorted to 
by the deer and other animals. These places are called ‘‘ licks,” and are found 
at many places in Missouri. 
The Big Bone Lick, Kentucky, is traversed by a small stream of brackish 
water. Its bottom consists of black, fetid mud, intermingled with sand and traces 
of vegetable matter. In this bog, bones of great magnitude have been found in 
great numbers. Mantell informs us that a fine skull with teeth, from the Big 
Bone Lick, had been placed in the British museum at a cost of 150 guineas. The 
length of the skull is 36 inches. 
Mastodon bones have been found in several other portions of Kentucky, 
some in Henry, and also in Owen county. Skeletons of the great Mastodon have 
also been found in bogs in Louisiana. in a vertical position, as if they had sunk 
in the mire; and one found in New Jersey, forty miles south of New York, was 
found in black earth, in the same position, as if it had sunk in the mire. The 
remains of the JZastodon Americanus have been found at several other localities 
n the more recent bog and lacustrine deposits of New Jersey. The most remark- 
able of these were found on the farm of William Ayers, half way between Vienna 
and Hackettstown, in Warren county. Six skeletons were found in this bog, and 
they were covered by six feet of mud. A small pond now occupies the place of 
this bog. Lyell informs us that five skeletons were lying together, and that many 
of the bones crumbled very much upon exposure. But nearly the whole of the 
other skeleton, which lay ten feet apart from the rest, was preserved entire, and 
had twenty ribs, like the elephant. From the clay in the interior, or where the | 
contents of the stomach should be, seven bushels of vegetable matter were 
extracted. A microscopic examination showed it to consist of pieces of small 
twigs of a coniferous tree, of the cypress family, probably the shvots of Zhwa 
occidentalis (Am. arbor vile). 
Another tooth was also found half a mile northeast of this; also in same 
county, on farm of Charles Howell, an imperfect skeleton. These remains were | 
probably taken to New York. Other remains were obtained near Greensville, | 
Sussex county ; also at three places in Monmouth county, and a portion of a jaw 
in a mill-race near Marlbro, at Hartshorn’s mill, and near Freehold, and a very | 
perfect tooth near Verona, Essex county. | 
