MAN. 75 



With the skeleton found by Dr. Koch, to which he gave 

 the name Missourium, were several stone arrow-heads. One 

 of these stone arrow-heads lay underneath and in contact 

 with the thighbone of the skeleton, at a depth of fifteen 

 feet. Near the skeleton, and fully as deep, were three 

 other flint arrow-heads. This statement of Dr. Koch was 

 contradicted by one of the men who assisted him in ex- 

 huming the skeleton. 



About one year before this discovery (1839), Dr. Koch 

 disinterred, in Gasconade county, Missouri, the charred 

 remains of the M. giganteus. In a report to the St. Louis 

 Academy of Sciences, he said : " The bones were suffici- 

 ently well preserved to enable me to decide positively that 

 they belonged to the M. giganteus. Some remarkable cir- 

 cumstances were connected with the discovery. The 

 greater portion of these bones had been more or less 

 burned by fire. The fire had extended but a few feet be- 

 yond the space occupied by the animal before its destruc- 

 tion, and there was more than sufficient evidence on the 

 spot that the fire had not been an accidental one, but on 

 the contrary, that it had been kindled by human agency, and 

 according to all appearance, with the design of killing the 

 huge creature which had been found mired in the mud and 

 in an entirely helpless condition. * * * All the 

 bones which had not been burned by the fire had kept 

 their original position, standing upright, and apparently 

 quite undisturbed in the clay; whereas those portions 

 which had been extended above the surface had been par- 

 tially consumed by the fire, and the surface of the clay 

 was covered, as far as the fire had extended, by a layer 

 of wood-ashes, mingled with larger or smaller pieces 

 of charred wood and burnt bones, together with bones be- 

 longing to the spine, ribs, and other parts of the body, 

 which had been more or less injured by the fire. The fire 

 appeared to have been most destructive around the head 



