Man and the Mastodon in Missouri. 845 
general,” which seems to make it almost certain that the beds 
were of quite recent origin. Neither in the account of 1839, 
nor of 1848, is the kind of animal mentioned, that of 1848 say- 
ing that “they were the remains of an animal which had clawed 
feet and was of the size of an elephant,” and “that the con- 
struction of the foot [fore foot] shows that it possessed much 
power in grasping and holding objects ;” but in that of 1857 he 
says ‘‘ the bones were sufficiently well preserved to enable one 
to decide positively that they belong to the Mastodon giganteus.” 
e tragic part of the story—about the elephantine beast 
having been burnt alive by the Indians after they had used their 
bows, and also thrown more than 150 great pieces of rocks 
“two to twenty-five pounds in weight” at him in vain,—is an 
taken long to get through the hide and muscle so as to char 
the bones; and an Indian’s appetite would have been pretty 
sure to have stopped the cooking short of this charring. The 
charring might have been done very long after the miring and 
death of the animal, and the facts be all as they are reported. 
The remark that “the greater portion of the bones had been 
more or less burned by fire” favors the idea that the fire was 
made about the bones at some time between the era of the 
Mastodon and the present time, and not about the living body. 
The failure to repeat, in either of the later accounts, the early 
statements respecting the large pieces of skin that appeared like 
fresh tanned sole-leather,’ and the “sinews and arteries plain 
to be seen on the earth and rocks,” shows that he afterward 
doubted and rejected this part of his observations ; and this 
unavoidably suggests some doubt as to the other points; even 
to questioning whether the charring was not in fact only a 
blackening in color due to burial in the marsh—a very common 
effect from such a cause; whether the crumbling was not 
a result of that natural decay which so generally befalls old 
bones; and whether the stone implements found were not sma 
oblong stones of nature’s chipping or polishing. 
Thus stands the evidence. If the statements respecting the 
deposits had been published by a good geologist with no more 
of detail, and without any special effort afterward to make all 
things positive, there would be some room for doubt, consider- 
_ ing the many chances of error that exist. But in the present 
case they were not made by a good geologist; they were not 
made by one trained to ahs eee or to habits of precise 
statement; nor by one who had a knowledge of any depart- 
comm 
