FOSSIL GEOLOGY OP UNITED STATES. 297 
clay, very compact and tenacious, are deposited the 
bones of extinct species." Mr. Cooper estimates, 
from the number of teeth and other bones removed 
from Big Bone Lick, that it would have required 
more than lOO mammoth and 20 elephants to have 
furnished the specimens already carried off. When 
the country was first discovered, many of these 
bones either lay on the ground, or very near it un- 
der the surface. We may form some idea of the 
size of the mammoth from some remains lately dis- 
covered in Jackson county, Ohio. Of these the 
tusk was nearly eleven feet lonp, and weighed 180 
pounds. One of the teeth weighed 8 1-4 pounds. 
These bones were dug from the bank of a creek, 
near the water, where they were found under a 
mass of stratified sands and clays 15 to 18 feet in 
thickness. 
One of the finest specimens of fossil mammoth 
in this country was obtained from a soft bog or 
meadow near Long Branch, in New-Jersey. The 
proprietor of the farm, walking over a reclaimed 
marsh, observed something projecting through the 
turf, which he struck with his foot, and found to be 
a grinder tooth. Two other teeth, some pieces of 
the scull, the spine, the humerus, and other bones, 
were afterward found. The soil around was a soft, 
dark peat, full of vegetable fibres. Though the 
scull and many other bones had been removed be- 
fore Messrs. Cooper, De Kay, and Van Rensselaer 
examined the spot, they were able to find the ver- 
tebral column with all the joints, the ribs articulated 
to them, resting in their natural position, about 
eight or ten inches below the surface. The scapu- 
lae both rested upon the heads of the humeri, and 
these, as in life, in a vertical position upon the 
bones of the forearm. The right forearm inclined 
a little backward, and the foot immediately below 
was a little in advance of the other, in the attitude 
^f walking. Ten inches below the surface was th© 
