75 



" The springs at Big Bone Lick, as at all other licks of Kentucky, are sources of saline 

 waters derived from the older Palseozoio rocks. The saline materials, as has heen sug- 

 gested by Dr. Sterry Hunt, have their origin in the imprisoned waters of the ancient 

 seas, or in the salts derived therefrom, which have been looked in the depths of the 

 strata below the reach of the leaching action of the surface water. Whenever the rocks 

 lie above the line of drainage, these salts have been leached away. As we go below 

 the surface they increase in quantity until we reach the level, where these waters 

 remain saturated with the materials which existed in the old sea waters. The displace- 

 ment of these old imprisoned waters is brought about by the sinking down of water on 

 the highlands through the vertical interstices of the soil and rock and the consequent 

 tendency of the water below the surface to restore the hydrostatic balance. This action 

 is. particularly likely to occur when the rocks above the drainage are limestones or 

 shales : while a bed of rock at some distance below the drainage is of sandstone, and 

 permeable to water. 



" This is the case at Big Bone Lick, where, at about two hundred feet below the sur- 

 face, we have the calciferous sandstone, with a structure open enough to admit the free 

 passage of water in a horizontal direction. That some such process is at work, is shown 

 by the fact that the water will rise ten feet or more above the surface of the soil if en- 

 closed in a pipe. The fact that the reservoir of these waters is below the general sur- 

 face, causes them to appear in the bottom of the valleys, and the considerable abstrac- 

 tion of matter from the underlying beds probably amounts to some hundred cubic feet 

 per annum in the case of Big fione Lick, causes a depression at the point of escape, and 

 brings about pretty generally the formation of a swamp in a depressed and constantly 

 lowering basin, through which the spring water seeps away, and where a large part of 

 it is usually evaporated. This swamp forms a natural trap for all the higher mammalia 

 in it. When excavations are made near the existing outlets of the springs, we iind the 

 remains of large mammals brought by man, the horse, cow, pig, and sheep. 



"In the frequent change of outlet of these springs, it comes to pass that at many 

 pomts near the surface of the thirty or forty acres that lie in the little basin where Big 

 Bone Lick is found, there are old spring vents, about which bones are found, that no 

 longer give forth saline waters. It is a fact bearing on the history of the Buffalo, that 

 their remains about Big Bone Lick are, when found, away from the purest springs, and 

 never at any depth beneath the surface. In the recent springs they are very abundant, 

 but not much more ancient in their appearance than the domesticated animals. The 

 evidence obtained at this point leads to the conclusion that the first appearance of this 

 species into the country was singularly recent, and also shows that their coming was 

 like an irruption in its suddenness. These Buffalo bones are wonderfully abundant in 

 some of the shallow swampy places of this neighborhood. I have seen them massed to 

 the depth of two feet or more, as close as the stones of a pavement, and so beaten down 

 by the succeeding herds as to make it difficult to lift them from their bed. 



" As will be seen from the accompanying diagram, there seems to have been some de- 

 gradation of the surface of this swamp after the deposition of many of the Mastodon 

 remains, and before the coming of the Buffalo. 



"This lowering of level was apparently consequent on the down-cutting of the bed 

 of the small creek that drains the valley. The old elevated beds had probably washed 

 a good deal when the Buffalo came, but it was principally by its wallowing and stamp- 

 ing that the bones of the Mastodon, Elephant, etc., were exposed to the air. At no 

 point in this old ground did I find a trace of the Buffalo, though in some of it the bones 

 identified by Mr. Allen as belonging to Ovilos were found. There, too/ were found the 



