K^lDNTS^lS CITY 



Review of Science and Industry, 



A MONTHLY RECORD OF PROGRESS IN 



SCIENCE, MECHANIC ARTS AND LITERATURE. 

 )L. III. MARCH, 1880. NO. 11. 



PALAEONTOLOGY. 



MASTODON REMAINS FOUND IN JACKSON COUNTY, MISSOURI. 



BY DR. F. A. BALLARD, INDEPENDENCE, MO. 



The remains of a mastodon were known to exist in an old lick in the eastern 

 part of the county, and this information having been conveyed to me by credible 

 parties, backed by a fragment of a bone of the fore-leg, I thought it best to make 

 a personal inspection of the remains. So in company with Mr. Tidswell and a 

 guide, who knew the spot well, I went to the place indicated — some twenty miles 

 east of here — and, upon inspection, found the road had been considerably washed, 

 and numerous ruts, from a few inches to three or four feet, were found in very 

 stiff, hard clay which apparently out-cropped just at that place, and no doubt 

 formed the bottom of the lick, for such it had been, as a responsible person vouch- 

 ed for, in my presence. This clay overlaid a very thick bed of ferruginous 

 sandstone and both the rock and clay were strongly impregnated with iron, as the 

 color indicated. On the edge of the largest rut and on top of the ground I found 

 the remains of what was supposed to be a log of peculiar kind of wood. What 

 kind it was no one could tell, but a close examination showed it to be an enor- 

 mous tusk in an advanced stage of decomposition, both by the action of the 

 elements and the triturating and grinding process of wagon wheels, crushing the 

 precious treasure every time they passed over it. One man declared that he had 

 known " that 'ere log o' wood to be there nigh onto forty year, and hearn that a 

 brute animal had died there." Others said that when it was first discovered, it 

 was larger than any sapling found in that country anywhere. But the wood prov- 

 ed to be the monster tusk of a mastodon, and measured at the base (from the 



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