298 FOSSIL GEOLOGY OF UNITED STATES. 
sacrum, with the pelvis united, though decayed. 
The femora were close by, but lay in a position 
nearly horizontal, the right less than the left, and 
both at right angles with the spine. Both tibiae, 
each with its fibula, stood nearly erect in their 
natural place beneath the femora, and below them 
were the bones of the hinder feet in their places ; 
no caudal vertebrae were seen. The marsh had 
been drained for three years, and the surface had, 
in consequence, been lowered about two feet, pro- 
ducing, probably, the dislocated attitude of the 
thigh bones. Beneath the peaty bed a sandy stra- 
tum was seen, and all the feet were noticed to be 
standing upon the top of this floor of the bog. 
The magnificent skeleton of the mastodon* in 
Peale's Museum, Philadelphia, was found near the 
Walkill, west of the Hudson River. Fossil re- 
mains of this animal have also been discovered in 
Rockland county (New- York), and in all the West- 
ern States, in some instances uncovered by any 
diluvial deposites. 
The bones of the megatherium, which is de- 
scribed at great length, and figured in Buckland's 
Geology, an animal larger than the rhinoceros, and 
resembling the sloth, have been found in a recent 
marsh on Skidaway Island (Georgia), and those of 
the megalonyx at the Big Bone Lick, and also in 
White Cave, Kentucky. 
As to the period when these animals ceased to 
exist, there is much uncertainty. While some ge- 
ologists have attributed their destruction to that ca- 
tastrophe which strewed this continent with bowl- 
ders and gravel, others have supposed that they 
have disappeared since the flood, as their remains 
are often discovered in the bogs and marshes, un- 
* This skeleton measures eighteen feet in length and eleven 
feet five inches in height. The tusks are ten feet seven inches 
long. It seems to have been provided with a trunk, and in its 
food and manner of living to have resembled the elephant. 
