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It was a curious circumstance attending the 

 purchase of these bones, that the sum which 

 was paid for them was little more than one- 

 third of what had been offered to the farmer for 

 them by another, and refused not long before. 

 This anecdote may not be uninteresting to the 

 moralist, and I shall explain it. The farmer, 

 of German extraction — and like many others 

 in America, speaking the language of his 

 fathers better than that of his country — was 

 born on his farm ; he was brought up to it as 

 a business, and it continued to be his pleasure 

 in old age 3 not because it was likely to free 

 him from labour, but because profit, and the 

 prospect of profit, cheered him in it, until Ll;e 

 end was forgotten in the means. — Intent upon 

 manuring his lands, to increase its produc- 

 tion (always laudable) he felt no interest in the 

 fossil shells contained in his morass; and had 

 it not been for the men who dug with him, 

 and those whose casual attention was arrested, 

 or v/ho were drawn by report to the spot, for 

 him the bones might have rotted in the hole 

 which discovered them : this he confeHed to 

 me would have been his conduct, certain that 

 after the surprise of the moment diey were 



