CHARLES WILLSON PEALE. 



citizens and strangers contributed to enlarge his collection, 

 and, in a few years, his picture gallery, at the corner of 

 Lombard and Third streets, after several enlargements, was 

 found to be too small for his Museum. It was then remov- 

 ed to the Philosophical Hall, and there was greatly aug- 

 mented, especially with the skeleton of the Mammoth,* 

 which was discovered in Ulster county, N. York State, and 

 disinterred at great expense and labour. Thus, a few 

 bones of the Mammoth accidentally suggested the idea of a 

 Museum, which, subsequently furnished its founder with 

 the means of procuring and displaying to the world the 

 first skeleton of that antedeluvian wonder, since classified 



under the name of Mastadon; which, in its turn contributed 

 to give character and value to a Museum that now ranks on 

 an equality with the most celebrated of Europe, founded 

 and supported as they are, by the wealth of powerful gov- 

 ernments. 



Hitherto no person in America had presented the sub- 

 ject of Natural History in the attractive shape of lectures. 

 With the view of combining the result of his own observa- 

 tions and discoveries, with the facts and observations that 

 were to be found scattered in various European works, Mr. 

 Peale delivered at the Museum a course of lectures at once 

 popular and scientific, which were attended by the most 



* In the spring of 1801, receiving information from a scientific correspon- 

 dent in tlie State of New York, that in the autumn of 1799 many bones of 

 the Mammoth had been found in digging a marle-pit in the vicinity of New- 

 burgh, which is situated on the river Hudson, sixty-seven miles from the 

 city of New Yorli, my father, Charles Willson Peale, immediately proceed- 

 ed to the spot, and through the politeness of Dr. Graham, whose residence on 

 tlie banks of the Wall-kill enabled him to be present when most of the bones 

 were dug up, received every information with respect to what had been 

 done, and the most probable means of fiiture success. The bones that had 

 been found were then in the possession of the farmer who discovered them, 

 heaped on the floor of his garret or granary, where they were occasionally 

 visited by the curious. These my father was fortunate to make a pur- 

 chase of, together with the right of digging for the remainder, and, imme- 

 diately packing them up, sent them on to Philadelphia. They consisted of 

 all the neck, most of the vertebras of the back, and some of the tail ; most of 

 the ribs, in greater part broken ; both scapulEe ; both humeri, with the radii 

 and ulns ; one femur; a tibia of one leg, and a fibula of the other ; some 

 large fragments of the head ; many of the fore and hind feet bones ; the pel- 

 vis, somewhat broken ; and a large fragment, five feet long, of one tusk, 

 about mid-way. He therefore was ^in want of some of the back and tail 

 bones, some of the ribs, the under jaw, one whole tusk and part of the other, 

 the breast bone, one thigh, and a tibia and fibula, and many of the feet 

 bones. But as the farmer's fields were then in grain, the enterprise of fur- 

 tlier investigation was postponed for a short time. 



The whole of this part of the country abounding with morasses, solid 

 enough for cattle to walk over, containing peat, or turf, and shell-marle, it is 

 the custom of the farmers to assist each other, in order to acquire a quantity 

 of the marie for manure. Pits are dug generally twelve feet long and five 

 feet wide at the top, lessening to three feet at the bottom. The peat or turf 

 is thrown on lands not immediately in use ; and the marie, after mellowing 

 through the winter, is in the spring scattered over the cultivated fields — the 

 most luxuriant crops are the consequence. It was in digging one of these, 

 on the farm of John Hasten, that one of the men, thrusting his spade deeper 

 than usual, struck what he supposed to be a log of wood, but on cutting it to 

 ascertain the kind, to his astonishment, he found it was a bone : it was quick- 

 ly cleared from the surrounding earth, and proved to be that of the thigh, 

 three feet nine inches in length, and eighteen inches in circumference, in the 

 smallest part. The search was continued, and the same evening several 

 other bones were discovered. The fame of it soon spread through the neigh- 

 bourhood, and excited a general interest in the pursuit : all were eager, at 

 the expense of some exertions, to gratify their curiosity in seeing the ruins 

 of an animal so gigantic, of whose bones very few among them had ever 

 heard, and over which they had so often unconsciously trod. For the two 

 succeeding days upwards of an hundred men were actively engaged, en- 

 couraged by several gentlemen, chiefly physicians of the neighbourhood, 

 and success the most sanguine attended their labours : but, unfortunately, 

 the habits of the men requiring the use of spirits, it was aflTorded them in too 



great profusion, and they quickly became so impatient and unruly, that they 

 had nearly destroyed the skeleton; and, in one or two instances, using oxen 

 and chains to drag them from the clay and marie, the head, hips, and tusks 

 were much broken ; some parts being drawn out, and others left behind. So 

 great a quantity of water, from copious springs, bnrsfing from the bottom, rose 

 upon the men, that it required several score of hands to lade it out, witli all the 

 milk-pails, buckets, and bowls, they could collect in the neighbourhood. All 

 their ingenuity was exerted to conquer difficulties that every hour increased 

 upon their hands ; they even made and sunk a large coifer-dam, and within 

 it found many valuable small bones. The fourth day so much water had 

 risen in the pit, that they had not courage to attack it again. In this state 

 we foiind it in 1801. 



It was a cnrious circumstance attending the purchase of these bones, 

 that the sum which was paid for them was little more tlian one-third of what 

 had been offered to the farmer for them by another, and refused, not long be- 

 fore. This anecdote may not be uninteresting to the moralist, and I shall 

 explain it. The farmer of German extraction — and like many others in 

 America, speaking the language of his fathers better than that of his coun- 

 try — was born on his farm ; he was brought up to it as a business, and it 

 continued to be his pleasure in old age ; not because it was likely to free him 

 from labour, but because profit, and tlie prospect of profit, cheered him in it, 

 until the end was forgotten in tlie means. Intent upon manuring his lands 

 to increase its production, (always laudable), he felt no interest in the fossil- 

 shells contained in his morass ; and had it not been for the men v/ho dug 

 with him, and tliose whose casual attention was arrested, or who were drawn 

 by report to the spot, for him the bones might have rotted in the hole in whicli 

 he discovered them ; this he confessed to me would have been his conduct, 

 certain that after the surprise of the moment they were good for nothing but 

 to rot as manure. But the learned physician, the reverend divine, to whom 

 he had been accustomed to look upwards, gave importance to tlie objects 

 which excited the vulgar stare of his more inquisitive neighbours : he there- 

 fore joined his exertions to theirs, to recover as many of the bones as possible. 

 With him, hope was every thing ; witli the men curiosity did much, but rum 

 did more, and some little was owing to certain prospects which they had of 

 sharing in the future possible profit. It is possible he might have encouraged 

 this idea ; his fear of it, however, seems to have given him some uneasiness ; 

 for when he was oifered a small sum for the bones, it appeared too little to di- 

 vide ; and when a larger sum, he fain would have en'grossed the whole of it, 

 or persuade himself that the real value might be something greater. Igno- 

 rant of what had been offered him, my father's application was in a critical 

 moment, and the farmer accepted his price, on condition that he should re- 

 ceive a new gun for his son, and new gowns for his wife and daughtei's, with 

 some other articles of the same class. The farmer was glad they were out 

 of his granary, and that they were in a few days to be two hundred miles dis- 

 tant ; and ray father was no less pleased witli the consciousness, and on 

 which every one complimented him, that they were in the hands of one who 

 would spare no exertions to make the best use of them. The neighbours, 



