326 C. Schuchert and R. S. Lull — 



ing the bones, nor was there a trace of the organic matter of 

 the animal left (see fig. 3). Further, there was no permanent 

 lake with an abundance of vegetation formed at this time or 

 later, for no freshwater shells (shell marl) were seen and the 

 clays do not at all effervesce under hydrochloric acid. Car- 

 bonate of lime is a good preservative of bones, but in this case 

 there is none present. The animal does not appear to have 

 been mired where it was found ; it probably died and lay 

 decomposing in the marsh, where occasional carnivorous or 

 scavenging animals came and dragged about some of the bones, 

 though why one of the tusks should be about 23 feet away 

 from the skull and on higher ground by 2 feet is hard to 

 explain. On the other hand, the body could not have lain 

 thus exposed many years, even in a cold climate, for most 

 of the bones immediately above the till have well-preserved 

 smooth and glossy surfaces. Nevertheless, nearly all of the 

 skeleton of the feet is absent, while some of the other small 

 bones, and especially those of the tail, were so rotten that 

 they could not be lifted and preserved. The absence of these 

 smaller bones may be due either to carnivores or to oxidation, 

 or to both causes. Some of the parts, and especially the pelvis 

 and top of the skull, lay so near the turf that the percolating 

 waters with their humic acids and the penetrating roots of the 

 plants had done considerable damage. It would seem, however, 

 that the skeleton must have soon become buried, and this is 

 suggested by the embedding clay, which is almost unaltered 

 glacial till devoid of all bowlders. In other words, the clay of 

 the general ground moraine on either side of the little valley, 

 but more particularly that of the rounded hills to the north, 

 was then being washed from between the bowlders into the 

 lower land, rapidly covering the skeleton. These hills are even 

 now covered in abundance with the much oxidized trap 

 erratics, hardly any of which retain the glacial striations, but 

 there is little blue clay here now. We therefore have the phe- 

 nomenon of the unoxidized clay washed into the swamp or 

 seasonal lake, while the remaining bowlders have ever since 

 been exposed to the influences of the weather, the trap bowl- 

 ders being the most altered. 



Above the till wherein the mastodon lay follows from 6 to 

 18 inches of glacial blue bowlderless clay that is but slightly 

 modified by some plant remains, largely roots, that have 

 penetrated into it from the swamp above. This is followed by 

 30 inches of a similar clay, slightly more modified by entombed 

 plants and penetrating roots, but still with an abundance of 

 brilliant muscovite. At the top occurs about 18 inches of 

 stringy turf that is full of water during most of the year, 

 making the swampy ground. In other words, the Farmington 



