I 



142 To Readers and Correspondents. 



to every animal functions appropriate to the condition of its existence. The ox ha« 

 cloven feet, which spread, and give him a better support when he treads, and thus ena- 

 bles him to seek his food in tiie marshy lands, which the small and solid footed horse does 

 rot venture upon. The voluminous tasks of the elephant and mastodon, are given to 

 them in like maimer, for conservative purposes. So are our own teeth to ourselves : but 

 if every imconformable case of dentition, every instance of teeth protruding in the wrong 

 places, or running obliquely to the direction of the jaws; or, if every particular contraction 

 or expansion of the jaws themselves, and every varying external appearance, shall be 

 deemed of sufficient importance to constitute a new genus or a new species, every in- 

 dividual will De a dislinct genus, and classification will eventually become a branch of 

 mathematics. If we are bound to treat this occasional deviation in the dentition of the 

 niasiodon in this manner, what will be made of our own race, when the present surface 

 of the earlb shall be added to the number of the ancient geological formations, and our 

 bones be disinterred by some future race of intellectual beings i 



At the conclusion of Dr. Hays' address, he handed in to the president a paper contain- 

 ing, as he expressed, the substance of the remarks : a committee was formed to examine 

 ii, and report upon it for publication. At the head of this committee was placed his par- 

 ticular friend ; a preconcerted arrangement often very convenient, both for good and for 

 evil, and therefore acquiesced in sometimes. As this address was a somewhat unusual 

 procedure before the American Philosophical Society, and as it involved a matter of some 

 interest in fossil zoology, the lew riaturalists who were present looked with some atten- 

 tion to the future proceedings of that committee. If there had existed any real diiTerence 

 of opinion between the lecturer on geolog}', and Dr. Isaac Hays, the subject was now in 

 t!ie hands of a committee of the American Philosophical Society, and the parties for the 

 present, were certainly bound to leave it there. We shall see how far this decorum was 

 observed by one of the parties. Dr. Hays's address was delivered on Friday, the 20lh 

 May : on the 24i;h, the following anonymous article signed X, appeared in the National 

 Gazette : — 



" It is with great pleasure we learn, that some of the scientific investigations of our 

 lamented Godinan, which had been incidentally alluded to in a recent popular lecture 

 on geology in this city, have been triumphantly sustained and vindicated in a lecture 

 delivered before the American Philosophical Society, a few evenings since, by his friend 

 Pr. Hays. It was asseried in the geological lecture, that 'the new genus Tetracaulodon 

 Mastodontoides (of Godman) must be abandoned, as the only distinctive character on 

 which it rested, was the presence of milk tusks in the lower jaw, which was common to 

 various species of mastodon, before the individuals had reached their full growth.' It is 

 believed that Dr. Hays satisfied every member present, that Dr. Godman's animal was 

 different from any other heretofore described; in corroboration of which he produced 

 from the splendid collection of the society, two of the largest jaws, both of which were 

 possessed of the socket supposed to exist only in the young. The good feeling which 

 prompted the defence of the scientific character of a departed friend, has been amply 

 rewarded in the investigation of the subject by the brilliant discovery of four new spe- 

 cies of this extraordinary family, among the fossil bones of the rich collection of the so- 

 ciety, and that of Mr. Welherill. A description of these was presented the same eve- 

 ning to the society, intended for publication in their transactions, and it is believed that 

 the public will be very shortly favoured with it, illustrated by engravings of the different 

 species. "X." 



The palpable misstatements contained in this article, could not escape any one in- 

 terested in the subject. Instead of Dr. Isaac Hays's address being a " triumphant vindica- 

 tion," it was an unequivocal abandonment of the new genus: it was disingenuously 

 concealed, that the two largest jaws were the identical jaws presented by the geological 

 lecturer to his class; and as to the brilliant discovery of four new species, it had no ex- 

 istence out of romance. It was not worthy of being distinguished from amidst the mas.s 

 of disgusting puffs which force their way into the public papers, but for one circumstance, 

 which disclosed to the lecturer on geology, that it was also intended to wound him. He 

 soon after its publication, got the complete proof, that this anonymous publication, origi- 

 nally contained very hostile allusions to him, which had been subsequently expunged ; 

 that the composition had received some assistance from, and had been given to the press, 

 by the very individual, bound in honour and duty, to discountenance its production, viz. 

 The chairman of the committee of the American Philosophical Society, charged with the 

 consideration of the subject. 



That Dr. Isaac Hays was the author of that disingenuous pufi) the writer of this narra- 

 tive does not assert, not having the proof of it ; that is a secret between his friend and 

 himself It is hardly to be supposed, that any one would take the trouble to draw up 

 such a paper, without a prospect of deriving some supposed advantage from it. The un- 

 expected discovery of the conduct of the chairman of the committee having opened the 

 eyes of the lecturer, to the combination forming against him, he sent the following an- 

 swer to X., which was published in the National Gazette of May 2C, 1831. 



