FOSSIL RONES OF QUADRUPEDS. 
305 
10. At, Jamestown, Chautauque county, a tooth of a mastodon was found several feet 
beneath the surface, in gravel. Dr. Emmons has in his possession a tooth from the same 
neighborhood, said to have been found in a bank of clay. Dr. De Kay refers this specimen 
to the American Stag. 
The localities enumerated are all that are known as occurring in the Fourth District. The 
different positions in which these remains are said to have been found, will probably all admit 
of one explanation. 
Notwithstanding the numerous localities which have been examined, and the great numbers 
of bones disinterred, there still seems to exist among many a doubt as to the period of their 
existence upon the earth. Their bones are said to be found in the diluvial or drift, thus 
identifying them with that period which, from all testimony, seems to have been one of general 
submergence beneath an ocean, and we have no knowledge of a previous condition of the 
surface fitted for their existence. It is doubtless true that these bones often occur imbedded 
in gravel and sand of the nature of the ordinary drift; but in such instances it can usually be 
shown that they have been transported, and that the deposit in which they occur is one of very 
modern origin. 
In all situations where these remains appear to have been left undisturbed, they are asso¬ 
ciated with the most recent deposits, proving that the animal has existed upon the surface 
since the present condition of things prevailed. 
In speaking of this subject, Dr. De Kay remarks, that “ The geological period at which 
this huge animal existed, has occasioned much attention. It must have been among the most 
recently extinct of all quadrupeds, unless we except some species whose generic types still 
exist on this continent. Rejecting as altogether fabulous the pretended discovery of the 
stomach of this animal, with its contents, consisting of reeds, twigs and grass, as detailed by 
Barton ( Med. and Phys. Jour., Yol 3, p. 23), it has certainly been discovered in positions 
indicating that the animal perished and left its bones on or near the surface where they are 
now found. Cuvier states that the mastodons discovered near the Great Osage river were 
almost all found in a vertical position, as if the animals had merely sunk in the mud ( Oss. 
Foss., Ed. alt. Yol. 1, pp. 217, 222). Since that time, many others have been found in 
swamps, a short distance beneath the surface, (frequently some of the bones appearing above 
the soil,) in an erect position; conveying the perfect impression that the animal (probably in 
search of its food) had wandered into a swamp, and unable to extricate himself, had died on 
the spot. Such an incident doubtless occurred to the animal whose remains we assisted to 
disinter, some years ago, at Long Branch, New-Jersey. He was in a natural vertical posi¬ 
tion, his body supported by the turf soil or black earth, and his feet resting upon a gravelly 
bottom. The occurrence of the bones of other animals not yet extinct, in company with those 
of the mastodon, is not a conclusive evidence of their contemporaneous existence ; but we 
cannot deny that it furnishes strong reasons for believing them to have been of a very recent 
date. We think it highly probable that the mastodon was alive in this country at a period 
