364 FOOD OF MASTODOX. [CHAP. XL. 



the contents of the stomach might naturally have 

 been looked for, seven bushels of vegetable matter 

 had been extracted ; and Professor Webster, of Har 

 vard College, had the kindness to present me with 

 some of it, which has since been microscopically ex 

 amined for me in London by Mr. A. Henfrey, of the 

 Geological Survey. He informs me that it consists 

 of pieces of the small twigs of a coniferous tree of 

 the cypress family ; and they resemble in structure 

 the young shoots of the white cedar (Thuja occiden- 

 talis\ still a native of North America, on which, 

 therefore, we may conclude that the mastodon fed. 



But a still nobler specimen of this great probos 

 cidian quadruped was exhumed in August, 1845, in 

 the town of Newburg, New York, and purchased by 

 Dr. John C. Warren, Professor of Anatomy in Har 

 vard University. It is the most complete, and, 

 perhaps, the largest ever met with. The bones 

 contain a considerable proportion of their original 

 gelatine, and are firm in texture. The tusks, when 

 discovered, were ten feet long ; but the larger part of 

 them had decomposed, and could not be preserved. 

 The length of the skeleton was twenty-five feet, and 

 its height twelve feet, the anchylosing of the two 

 last ribs on the right side affording the comparative 

 anatomist a true gauge for the space occupied by the 

 intervertebrate substance, so as to enable him to form 

 a correct estimate of the entire length. Dr. Warren 

 gave me an excellent Daguerreotype of this skeleton 

 for Mr. Clift, of the College of Surgeons in London. 



Nothing is more remarkable than the large propor 

 tion of animal matter in the tusk, teeth, and bones of 



