108 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



tions of science, in such limes, and the devotedness to research, under such circumstances, 

 are unerring evidences of the advancement of learning in our country. 



The sources of information in our own state, as well as those of the country generally, 

 afforded peculiar gratification to your delighted auditory. Amongst other objects and 

 discoveries of importance, the remarks on the fossil bones of the mammoth discovered in 

 our state particularly attracted my attention. Conceiving that a further development 

 of this discovery might be interesting, and that the facts concerning it may be pro- 

 per, I have ventured to address you this letter. 



If the disclosures I shall make, and the opinions I may suggest, can be of use to you, 

 they are very much at your service. Should they be of no other use, they may indicate 

 to the more acute observer, where are occult objects worthy of philosophical scrutiny 

 and investigation. 



Having participated in the procuring of those fossils, and professing to be well ac- 

 quainted with their discovery, as also the topography of the circumjacent country, I 

 shall proceed to give you a plain detail of the facts in relation thereto. 



The first discovery of these fossils was made in the town of Montgomery, in the 

 county of Orange, about thirty years since, by the Reverend Mr. Annin. The place of 

 discovery was in a sunken and miry meadow, in digging a ditch to carry off the excess 

 of water ; several of the harder parts or bones of the mammoth skeleton were discovered ; 

 these were the ribs, two teeth, (grinders,) and part of the thigh bone ; the teeth and ribs 

 were in a very sound state, but the others were considerably decayed, and an exposure to 

 the air had such an effect upon them, as to render their preservation useless. Subse- 

 quent to that time several scattered remains of skeletons of the same animal have been 

 discovered ; but from carelessness, or other causes, these have been lost. The specula- 

 tions of persons who saw these phenomena were various, and, in some instances, 

 ridiculous, affording no rational improvement to the naturalist. The advancement in 

 agriculture, which began to show itself in the counties of Orange and Ulster at this 

 period, while it enriched the husbandman, and beautified the country, was the cause of 

 other discoveries of this nature, which drew the subject before the public, attracted 

 the immediate attention of literary men, and led to the exertions of the enterprising 

 Mr. Peale of Philadelphia, who procured two skeletons of these non-descript animals 

 nearly entire ; by the ingenuity and enterprise of this gentleman, these hidden treasures 

 of natural history were brought to public view, to astonish and delight the sons of 

 science. At the time of this discovery it was my lot to be in the vicinity, and to con- 

 tribute my exertions in taking them from their hidden depositories. The parts of these 

 fossils heretofore discovered had excited an interest far short of their importance. The 



