New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-03-28
RONES.

BONES.
Since the Cardiff Giant was discovered TO be
a Fraud instead of a fossil, reports OF paliB-
ozoic discovery in Central New-York are to
be received with considerable caution. we
believe it is q fact that the skeleton or
mastodon was dug up few years since near
Cohoes. but az the animal seemed to have
been. in life, not much larger than school
house, the discovery attracted little attention
and the bones have faded out OF history.
There is nothing intrinscally improbable III
the statement that fragmentary remains OF q
similar though much larger animal have recent
" been discovered in the Chemung Valley, and
that the neighbOrhOOd physician and the
farmer on whose premises the bones were found
are still disputing the possession OF two
colossal bi-cuspids, which in some prehistoric
and pre-diluvial period the fossil had casually
dropped out of its mouth. The probable value
and interest of these enormous grinders Is en-
HANGED by a tradition that two fossil tusks,
each ten feet in length, have at different times
been found in the river upon the brink OF
which the recent discovery was made. One OF
these impaired its name to the river Chemung,
which in the Indian dialect signifies big
"hOrn :" the other still imparts interest to
museum of fossils at Quebec. Although the
animal cannot be justly held responsible for
the instability of its members, their disper-
sion is matter of serious regret. IT, as con-
iectured, the remainder of the skeleton be I'M
bedded in the bank from which the recent
discoveries were taken, it is to be hoped
that an effort will be made to restore
its autonomy. However impressive and Sigan-
tic the undiscovered remainder may be, 1t
would be shOrn of its legitimate interest II It's
teeth, horns, Occipital fragments, and verte-
bral links were scattered about the country.
No fossil can do itself justice without preserv-
ing coherent geographical outlines and keep
ing it's bones well together. Tusks and grind
ers which separately would serve only to con-
fuse provincial museums and unsettle provln-
cial faith in biblical chronology, would when
aggregated and adjusted stand colossal and
majestic framework the wonder and the les
son of science; a challenge of the bulky pre-
tension of the whale, an example to the grow
ing elephant, and rebuke of the trivialty
and degeneracy of the modern hppOpOtamus.
If the discovery turns out to be as important
as reported, we hope the doctor and the farmer
will reconcile their differences, and bring their
teeth together; that Quebec will hand us over
| that tusk. and that the architecture of the
beast, carefully adjusted and restored, may be
placed in some metropolitan collection OF
pal@OntOlogy.
Science atirms that these vast remains are
in many cases the primeval types OF animals
which still survive. Australian fossils shadow
forth the rebounding and Unbalanced kanga-
roo, as we'll as its fellow marsupial, the
wombat. The fossil fragments of the Apteryx
and Dinornis found there seem to have pre-
figured the gigantic wingless bird still on its
legs in that continent. In South America are
found remains which are gigantic prophecies
| of the Sloth, the Llama, the ArmadlllO, and
| some of the Simian tribes. 1t is strange to
| consider how the types have dwindled and
diminished. 1t will be interesting to see what
| light, if any, these singular relics cast upon
the abysm Of the ages which shroud the in
| fancy of the continent. Were there many of
| these huge roaring monsters, or were they
rare like the Roc and the Phoenix of which
| HerodOtus tells us7 Was this Chemung Colossus
of kin with the great hairy elephant which
used to abound in the northern parts Of Europe
ana Asia9 Or with the allied but
more widely distributed mastodOn2 How came
its breed to this eontinent' Did it stalk out
of wintry Siberian solitudes and slide across
the ice of Behring's Strait, as the aborigine is
thought to have done? or swim hither from
Greenland, through double files of cascading and
astounded leviathans7 or did its gigantic bulk
spontaneously assemble around some indigo
nous germ of consciousness and evolve itself
into heterOgeneity upon the superior antedilu-
Wan pasturage of Chemung9 What did it
live On7 The tops of trees, like the giraffe
or the bottoms of rivers like the behemothf
Was il gregarious and fond of amusement, or
| solitary and mOrose9 A thoughtless, frolic-
some creature, with hons ten feet long, gam
boiling about the woods and playfully tearing
up trees by the roots, must have lent an
aspect of peculiar liveliness to the prmeval
landscape. If there were men in these days
land discoveries in various parts of the world
of weapons and implements of flint seem to
attest that man was coeval with many of the
extinct mammals) they must have experienced
embarrassment at the proximity OF an animal
likely at any time to step on village or lie
down on an entire neghborho0d
We trust that when the relics of the animal
| are got together, Science, scanning the we'll
ventilated erection through the spectacles of
gravity and the goggles of wisdom, will be
able to respond to some of these inquiries.
Everything which links us with the unknown
past il of deep interest to mankind. These