Megalonyx in Holmes county, Ohio. — Claypole. 131 
may cause those bones to be put in the best order for the society's 
use. " 
The Committee of Publication consisted apparently of Dr. C. 
Wistar as chief, for as we further read: 
" 1799, March 1, Wistar's description of the bones of the un- 
known animal, referred to Dr. Shippen for examination." 
And at the next meeting : 
' < Dr. Shippen reported Dr. Wistar's description of the bones to 
be very accurate. Publication ordered." 
Thomas Jefferson was, at the date in question, the president of 
the society and an active member ; and, when later, he became 
President of the United States, he did not lose his interest in sci- 
entific pursuits, being reelected to both offices, and holding both 
for several years together till compelled by the pressure of politi- 
cal duties to resign the former. 
The full title of the paper mentioned above, was ' ' A Memoir 
on the Discovery of certain Bones of a Quadruped of the Clawed 
Kind, in the western parts of Virginia," and in it the author sug- 
gested the name Megalonyx, in allusion to the enormous claw, 
which was one of the most striking of the specimens. This was 
adopted by Wistar in his account ; and when Dr. Harlan later and 
more fully described them, and, as he supposed, another species 
also, he conferred on the former the deserved specific name derived 
from that of the statesman who first made them known — Megal- 
oii3*x Jeffersonii. 
This first find was made in a cave in Greenbrier count}', West 
yirginia, and consisted of a broken femur, a radius and ulna, 
three metacarpals, three claws and four other phalanges. They 
are now in the cabinet of the Academy of Natural Sciences at 
Philadelphia. Other bones belonging to the same find were car- 
ried away by different people and lost or placed in other museums 
and their history forgotten. 
Besides these bones — the original and classical specimen of this 
great Edentate — there are in the same collection about 20 frag- 
ments of another young Megalonyx from Big Bone Cave in Ten- 
nessee, a humerus from Big Bone Lick, Kentucky, and a rib which 
is thought to belong to Jefferson's specimen, a skull, with aboul 
a score of bones and teeth, more orless perfect, from Mississippi ; 
another skull and about 50 whole and broken bones from tin- 
