164 GEOLOGICAL SITUATION AND 



three have been found in the fresh-water marshes of Orange County, N. T. ; 



a fourth, in an interior morass in New Jersey. The fifth was obtained from 



the banks of the Missouri, probably in a fresh-water deposit. Neither of 



the five, therefore, was found, so far as we know, in a saline soil. Separate 



bones in considerable numbers have been extracted from the saline deposits 



of Kentucky and Ohio, but nothing like complete skeletons. 



Time. The length of time since the probable disappearance of the Mastodon 



race has been, and still is, buried in uncertainty. No history or tradition, 



either in the Old Continent or the New, can be considered as referrible to 



any species of Mastodon. This could not have occurred in regard to so 



remarkable an animal, if it had really existed within the historical period 



of the Old World, or the traditionary of the New. There is, indeed, in Mr. 



Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia," an account of a poetical tradition of the 



Delaware Indians, relating to the ancient destruction of animals of great 



size in the Ohio country. This tradition, however, which Mr. Jefferson 



imputed to the Mastodon, was undoubtedly referred, by the Indians, to the 



gigantic bison or buffalo ; and, of course, does not form an exception to 



the general fact. 



Growth of The existence of beds of shell-marl over Mastodon bones must be con- 



Beds of 

 sheii Mari. sidered as a ground for believing in their antiquity ; and the facts quoted 



from Sir Charles Lyell, Dr. Gibbes, Mr. Conrad, Mr. Foster, and others, tend 



to show that this antiquity would extend farther back than the present 



geological arrangement. It would be extremely desirable to ascertain by 



exact observations, whether, as marl-beds are composed of shells of existing 



species of mollusca, we may not learn, by observing the gradual increase 



of these beds, what length of time might be required to envelop, or cover, 



these and other fossil bones deposited in or under them. Sir Charles Lyell, 



