AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
199 
parts of the country, especially if lying deep in the ground, 
should be wrought without ruinous expenditure. 
It is worthy of remark, that the cattle drink, freely, of 
the waters of the Oil Springs, a fact which we should hard- 
ly expect, since they are so foul, and since there is abund- 
ance of pure water near; and also because we should ex- 
pect that the petroleum would render the water very dis- 
gusting to animals; perhaps they may find in this fountain, 
something of the reputed virtues of tar water; I could not 
learn that birds ever light upon or near the Spring; the 
mephtic gases might, perhaps, make it a real JLvernus , to 
them. 
The present depth of the Petroleum Spring is but a few 
feet. It is scarcely necessary to add, that, in accordance 
with the usual state of popular impression in similar cases, 
it is confidently asserted here, that the Oil Spring, was, 
when first known, literally a bottomless pit; we may, 
however, safely conclude, that it was then much deeper 
than at present. When I asked a plain man, in the vici- 
nity, how he imagined it was first formed, he replied, that 
he believed the gas-air, (as he called it,) blew up the 
ground at a time when the fountain first rose, and that the 
flow of water and gas had preserved it ever since, although 
it had been greatly filled and clogged by earth and other 
substances, falling or thrown into the cavity. I shall not 
attempt to substitute any theory of my own, for this indi- 
genous hypothesis, of an uninstructed man, who certainly 
reasoned ingeniously, if not conclusively. I presume he 
had never heard either of Pluto or Neptune, and therefore 
drew his conclusions from his own mind and not from any 
geological theory. — Si/liman’s Journal. 
BIG BONE LICK, KENTUCKY. 
No place, perhaps, in the western country, is so inter- 
esting to the geologist, as Big Bone Lick, in Kentucky. 
This wonderful spot is a small valley situated twenty 
miles south-west of Cincinnati, and two from the Ohio 
river. In a number of plaees, the ground is so soft for 
several rods, that a pole may, with ease, be thrust down 
many feet. In these soft places, saline and sulphurous 
mineral waters arise.'* The earth around these places is 
dry and solid. 
The ground for several rods around these springs, is en- 
tirely without vegetation, owing to the salt with which 
* The waters are beneficial to health; but the place is not much re- 
sorted to. 
it is impregnated; and a manufactory of salt was formerly 
established here, but it is now discontinued. 
This was formerly the rendezvous of vast herds of quad- 
rupeds. Their trails, when the country was first settled, 
extended from the Lick, for miles in several directions, 
like the roads from a metropolis. Vast numbers of these 
quadrupeds perished in the quagmire; some probably were 
slain in battles of emulation and ferocity, and many more 
were destroyed by carnivorous animals. Here are now 
found the bones of the mastodon, elephant, buffalo, elk, 
and of other, and now unknown animals; they are in im- 
mense quantities — it is a complete charnel-house. The 
bones are generally under ground, and so numerous that 
you cannot dig a hole, to the depth at which they are 
usually found, without striking them. They are, how- 
ever, generally bones of the buffalo. 
On the east side of a rivulet that runs near the principal 
spring they lie in a horizontal stratum, three feet below 
the surface where the ground is lowest, and eleven, where 
the ground is eight feet higher. As the ground is dry and 
solid over this stratum, it cannot be supposed that the 
bones have sunk through to its present level. Their posi- 
tion also excludes such a supposition, each bone lying hori- 
zontally, and the stratum also being horizontal. If the 
bones had descended when the ground was soft, it cannot 
be supposed that they would have arranged themselves 
into a horizontal stratum irrespective of the unevenness of 
the ground, and of the various depths, three and eleven 
feet, necessary to attain this horizontal range. It is there- 
fore evident, that this part of the valley was level when 
these bones were deposited, that they lay on the surface 
and were subsequently covered with earth. As they have 
been covered without being displaced, or the horizontal 
position of each bone, or of the stratum, disturbed, the 
only admissible supposition is, that they have been cover- 
ed by an inundation. They must have been long accumu- 
lating; for there has been no accumulation since that event, 
which bears any comparison for quantity, with those thus 
imbedded. The inference also seems warranted, that 
quadrupeds have never been equal, either in number or 
variety, since that inundation, to what they were previous- 
ly to it. As many of these bones are in a good state of 
preservation, we are led to conclude that the water has re- 
tired from the valley of the Mississippi at a later period, 
than it has from the Atlantic States: for although it is ca- 
pable of demonstration, that these states have been inun- 
dated, yet the facts which constitute that demonstration, 
indicate also an earlier period. 
The foregoing discussion relates to a part only of this 
valley; for the ground on the opposite side of the rivulet, 
is higher and presents a different class of phenomena. 
