208 JVotices of Big-bone Lick. 



not think that this point has been sufficiently made out. I saw 

 nothing in support of it myself, nor have I met with any person 

 who could answer for such a fact, from his own careful observation. 

 In the case of those recently exhibited in this city, one of the pro- 

 prietors who assisted in disinterring them, acknowledged to me, 

 that the horses' bones were generally near the surface, although 

 part of a skull was found at the depth of twelve or fifteen feet ; 

 but that they were all separated from the great bones, which 

 lay at the depth of twenty two feet, and in a different kind of soil. 

 Mr. Bullock, it is true, states that " the bones of the horse were 

 found at various depths, from five to twenty feet, indiscriminately 

 with the other bones." 



When the report printed in the first number of this Journal 

 was presented to the Lyceum of New York, I was inclined to a 

 different opinion, having been led to suppose that all the bones 

 and teeth exhibited as fossil, had been found lying promiscuously 

 together. But finding, upon stricter inquiry, that this was not the 

 case, and that part at least of those belonging to the horse Were 

 undoubtedly recent, I consider it best to wait for more certain 

 evidence before admitting the existence of an ancient race of 

 this genus upon our continent. It is not a new thing, however, 

 to hear of fossil remains of horses in this country. The first printed 

 notice of them, as far as I am aware, is contained in Mitchill's 

 " Catalogue of Organic Remains," pp. 7 and 8. They consist of 

 a vertebra and several teeth found in New Jersey. In the col- 

 lection of the Lyceum are likewise others, represented as fossil, 

 from other American localities, but I know not upon what evi- 

 dence. 



On the Position of the Organic Remains at Big-hone Lick. 



Nearly in the centre of the valley in which the great bone 

 licks are situated, as may be seen by the map,* is a fountain, 

 called by the inhabitants the Gum Spring. It is the most copi- 

 ous, and the most distinguished for the peculiar properties of its 

 waters of all that the valley contains. Opposite to this is a small 

 island, formed by the division of one of the two principal branches 

 of Big-bone creek, at its north-east point, one arm passing by the 

 great spring, where it unites with the other branch, while the 

 main body continues round the south side of the island, at the 



* See pi. 5, vol. I. No. 4, Monthly Journal of Geology, &c. 



