CHAP. XL.] FOSSIL MASTODON. 363 



contain the greatest number of native-born citizens. 

 They must sojourn in the east, rather than in the 

 west or south, not among the six million who are one 

 half African and the other half the owners of ne 

 groes, nor among the settlers in the back-woods, who 

 are half Irish, German, or Norwegians, nor among 

 the people of French origin in Louisiana ; for, how 

 ever faithfully they may portray the peculiarities of 

 such districts, they will give no better a representa 

 tion of America, than an accurate description of 

 Tipperary, Connemara, the West Indies, French Ca 

 nada, Australia, and the various lands into which 

 Great Britain is pouring her surplus population, 

 would convey of England. 



Among other scientific novelties at Boston, I was 

 taken to see two magnificent skeletons, recently ob 

 tained, of the huge mastodon, one of them found in 

 Warren county, New Jersey, which a farmer had 

 met with six feet below the surface, when digging 

 out the rich mud from a small pond newly drained. 

 There were no less than six skeletons, five of them 

 lying together, and the sixth and largest about ten 

 feet apart from the rest. A large portion of the 

 bones crumbled to pieces as soon as they were ex 

 posed to the air, but nearly the whole of the separate 

 specimen was preserved. Dr. John Jackson called 

 my attention to the interesting fact that this perfect 

 skeleton proved the correctness of Cuvier s conjec 

 ture respecting this extinct animal, namely, that it 

 had twenty ribs like the elephant, although no more 

 then nineteen had ever been previously found. From 

 the clay in the interior within the ribs, just where 



R 2 



