50 



TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



tion of the uninitiated. Thus, in excavating the canal 

 around the falls of Ohio, the remains of portions of se- 

 veral individual skeletons of the Mastodon were ex- 

 humed from the river banks, several feet beneath the 

 surface of the present soil. Several pairs of tusks were 

 arranged in a circle, within which were the remains of 

 a fire and Indian tools ; various other bones of the same 

 were scattered about this focus, which had no doubt at 

 some distant day been so arranged by the native Indians. 

 A writer in one of the Kentucky papers presumed that 

 all the bones were the remains of a single individual, 

 with its immense mouth filled with enormous teeth, and 

 armed with several pairs of huge tusks, and the whole 

 animal of course sufficiently large to swallow a forest at 

 a meal. 



Another account of a huge animal disinterred at Big- 

 bone-lick, 60 feet long and 25 feet high ! has gone the 

 rounds, being first published in our western papers, re- 

 published in those of the Atlantic cities, and finally 

 transferred to those of Europe. 



Of a character somewhat analogous are the descrip- 

 tions of similar organic remains published by individuals 

 supposed to possess higher claims to science, in the 

 Trans, of the Am. Philos. Soc. vols. iii. and iv. At 

 page 478 of the volume first referred to, there is a de- 

 scription of the under jaw of a young Mastodon, with a 

 figure. This relique was found in Orange county, New 

 York, and is now in the New York museum. 



The author of these remarks took an early opportu- 



