66 The West American Scient?st. 
EPOCH OF THE MASTODON IN NORTH AMERICA. 
The most interesting of the animals that have recently, (in a 
geological sense), become extinct, is probably the American 
mastodon, {Mastodon gigantes) which, in connection with the 
mammoth, or fossil elephant, (Elephas primigenius) appears to 
have attained a great numerical development upon this continent 
at about the close of the Pleistocene, or the commencement of 
the Post-tertiary epoch. Geologists are enabled to determine 
with certainty the age at which these colossal herbiverous ani- 
mals existed in this country, ftom the circumstance that their 
bones are found in a partially petrified or sub-fossil state, in 
superficial deposits, lying above the drift formation, as for exam- 
ple in peat-bogs or the mud and marl deposits of existing ponds 
and lakes, the origin of which, it seems, cannot extend far back 
of the introduction of man upon this continent. Some have 
thought that the mastodons and mammoths did not become 
entirely extinct in this country until after the advent of man, and 
find a support for their opinion in various traditions of the North 
American Indians. which represent their ancestors as warring 
against certain colossal animals, which are described as tree- 
eaters, and as never lying down, but leaning against a tree when 
they slept. Sir Charles Lyell, however, after a review of all the 
facts in the case, has arrived at the opinion that the period of the 
extinction of the mastodon, although geologically modern, must 
have been many thousand years ago. Judging from the dis- 
tribution of their bones the mastodons appear to have existed 
most numerously in the valleys ot the Ohio and Mississippi, and 
from thence to have roamed as far to the northeast as New York 
and New England. Their remains, however, have been but 
rarely found in New England, and it has been conjectured that 
the Hudson river may have acted as a barrier to their migrations. 
The mammoth, or fossil elephant, appears to have roamed over 
the same territories contemporaneously with the mastodon, but 
in much smaller numbers. In the western States the bones of 
these animals are found most commonly in the low places around 
the salt-lick spots, that are still frequented by deer and other 
wild animals that come to lick up the saline waters. At one 
such locality in Kentucky, known as the ‘‘Big Bone Lick”’ 
about twenty miles south west from Cincinnati, it is esitmated ° 
that the bones of one hundred mastodons and twenty mam- 
moths have been dug up together with the bones of the mega- 
lonyx,buffalo,deer and other animals. The most complete skele- 
tons of the mastodons have, however, been found in swamps and 
peat-bogs,in which the animals were probably accidently mired and 
suffocated. The finest and largest skeleton in existence was dis- 
covered by some laborers engaged in digging marl from a swamp 
in Newburg, N. J., in the summer of 1845. It occupied a stand- 
ing position, with the head raised aud turned to one side and the © 
(tron ai 
