FOSSIL MAMMALIA. 67 



argilla retained a little carbonate of lime and sulphuret of iron. 

 There was also a little oxide of iron. 



Near the river of the Osages myriads of these bones were 

 seen, according to Mr. Smith Barton, and seventeen tusks were 

 collected, some of which were six feet in length and a foot in 

 diameter, most of them far advanced in decomposition. 



One of the most remarkable of the depots of these bones was 

 found at Withe, in Virginia, five feet and a half under ground, 

 on a bank of calcareous stone. One of the teeth weighed seven- 

 teen pounds. In the midst of these bones was found a mass of 

 little branches, grass, and leaves, in a half-bruised state. Among 

 these was a species of rose, now common in Virginia, and the 

 whole was enveloped in a kind of sack, which was considered to 

 be the stomach of the animal. The substratum of this soil is a 

 calcareous stone, full of coquillaceous impressions. The caverns 

 there abound in nitre, sulphate of soda, and magnesia. 



Not to be tedious as to localities — the bones of the great mas- 

 todon are found in abundance all over North America, from 

 the forty-third degree of north latitude, north of Lake Erie, as 

 far south as Charlestown, in Carolina, in thirty-three degrees. 



As far as we know, the bones of this enormous animal do 

 not exist in any other country of the globe. They are always 

 found at moderate depths, and exhibit few marks of decompo- 

 sition, and none of detrition ; a proof that, like the other fossils, 

 they remained in the places where they are found since the 

 period of the animaPs destruction. Those on the river of the 

 Great Osages were found in a vertical position. The ferrugi- 

 neous substance with which they are tinctured, or penetrated, 

 proves that they have been a long time imbedded in the interior 

 of the earth. 



Indications that the sea rested on, or passed over them, are 

 more rare than in the case of elephantine remains. No remains 

 of shells or zoophytes have been found upon their bones, nor, 

 according to all accounts, in the strata from which they have 

 been taken. This is the more singular, as the salt-marshes 



F 2 



