“among other objects that we dug up 
were bone tools, which probably were 
used for flaking the flmt implements. One 
mammoth tool was of remarkable size, 
measuring sixteen inches in length. | 
Though I brought back a great many of 
these teeth, they represent only a smal! 
‘fraction of those found. Many of them 
are wonderfully perfect, the enamel hay- 
ine preserved them, while the ordinary 
bones are nearly all decayed. One mam- 
moth tooth, by the way, is so abnormal in 
shape. being a regular freak tooth, in- 
deed, as to indicate that the animal to 
awhich it belonged must have suffered 
fearfully from toothache during its life- 
time. 
“Now, there are several points of very 
notable interest about this discovery. | 
Why, in the first place, should all of these | 
yemains of different kinds of animals, 
poth ancient and modern, have been gath~ 
ered together in this spring? Secondly, 
what is the meaning of the surprising de- 
posit of exquisite flint implements like- 
wise found there? Thirdly, does the as- 
sociation of these implements with the 
‘remains of the mammoth, mastodon, and 
other extinct animals indicate that’! tae 
men who made thé tools were contempo- 
rary with the creatures in question? 
* Man Not Contemporary with Mastodon. 
“As for the last.question, the answer is 
' emphatically a nexative. There is not the 
slightest reason for supposing that the. 
people who made the tools lived at the 
same period with the mastodon and mam-~ 
moth. The ancient water-hole was sit- 
uated in the midst of the great buffalo 
range of the West—a region that was for- 
merly the hunting ground of the most fa- 
mous buffalo hunters, the Sioux. To them 
the spring was a sacred place, perhaps the 
dwelling place of the god of water, the 
father of the buffalo tribe, or some other 
deity, and to this divinity they made of- 
. ferings, throwing into it iniplements 
which were intended probably as -pro- 
pitiatory gifts, to persuade the god to 
grant good fortune in the chase, It is 
noticeable that not one of the tools has 
been used, the points and ot being as 
: hen made, and there is every 
sae te aAipposs that they were sacri- 
nN 
f 
f 
ficial and were dnade especially for the | 
purpose. Description’ can hardly exas- 
gerate the beauty of their workmanship. 
. “Tt was before and perhaps during the 
glacial period that the mammoth and 
mastodon roamed those plains. But that 
region was not invaded by the mighty 
ice-sheet which spread southward as far 
as*Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Omaha. In 
all probability the country was then much 
like what it is to-day. The great elephants 
may have come to drink at the water-hole 
described and some of them thus become 
mired in the bog, dying there, and leaving 
behind them, their teeth and a few, bones 
as memorials. qt was the same way with 
the extinct horse and the extinct species 
of buffalo. neti 
“There came a time when these ancient 
animals were succeeded by creatures of 
other tyres. The mammoth, the masto- 
don, the early species of buffalo, and the 
others passed away, and there arrived the 
elk, the deer, the buffalo, and the wol!. 
When they came or whence they arrived 
we do not know. Probably man was the 
last arrival, but. when he appeared on the | 
scene or where he came from we can only 
surmise. Aue 
“Elow wonderfully interesting is the his- 
tory of this spring in the midst of a deso- 
late morass on the plains of the* Indian 
Territory! Through age after age it was a 
center of interest and a, gathering place 
for the animals of the region. Strange 
and monstrous creatures, row long van- 
ished, came there to drink century after 
century. They’ passed away \and other 
tribes of mammals took their place—when | 
or why we do not know. Finally, primi- 
tive man arrived, and he, too, drew his 
water supply from the hole in the marsh. 
Hor him it acquired a supernatural in- 
terest; the dream. of some prophet pro- 
vided it with an imaginary god, and the 
wondering people cast into its waters ap- 
| propriate votive offerings, / The. savage 
hunter passed away in his turn, but the 
spring remains to-day as it was in by- 
Sone 7 ages, “and Athe passing traveler 
quenches his thirst at the bubbiing foun- 
tain which has witnessed whole choirs 
of geologic and biologic as well as jan 
thropologic mysieries,”’ ; 
RENE BACHE, — 
