94 THE CAMBRIDGE MASTODON. 



excavation for the purpose above mentioned was undertaken, and resulted 

 in the discovery of the skeleton and heads. 

 Nature It is said, in a letter -written by Mr. J. B. Maxwell to Professor Henry 



of the 



Deposit, in October, 1844, and read before the American Philosophical Society at 

 their semi-annual meeting in December following (Appendix E), that the 

 deposit in which they were found was thus composed : — 



" On the top is about one foot of vegetable deposit, formed of decayed 

 leaves, &c. ; then about six inches of whitish sand, mixed with vegetable 

 matter ; and below this a deposit, which Mr. Ayers says, when first opened, 

 was of a yellowish color, very much resembling in appearance the manure 

 of a cow-yard when thrown up in heaps in the winter, and had a very 

 strong smell of the same kind. Exposure to the weather has changed its 

 color to the dull bluish black of swamp -earth, which it seems to be mixed 

 with ; also great quantities of vegetable remains, principally of marsh 

 plants, with scattered fragments of branches of trees, &c. In this deposit 

 the remains were found, covered from four to six feet deep."' " Between 

 the ribs of two or three of them was a considerable quantity of what Mr. 

 Ayers describes as resembling coarse chopped straw, mixed with fragments 

 of sticks, — no doubt the contents of the stomach." 



Some account of these remains has also been given hj Professor J. 

 B. S. Jackson in the " Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History," 

 of Oct. 1, 1845. 



Re-articu- Having been erroneously articulated in many respects, the skeleton 



latum. . . 



was committed to me, by the government of the University, for the 

 purpose of re-articulation ; and it was therefore removed to the Hall con- 

 taining my collection of comparative skeletons. There, being placed by 

 the side of the large Mastodon skeleton and that of the elephant, an oppor- 



