The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1882-05-13
MastOdOntic Remains.


1t was full of muck and peaty soil, and
at the bottom were found the chief bones
of an immense elephant. 1t was deter
mined that the animal had been washed
into the hole when New York State was
covered with glaciers hundreds, perhaps
thousands, of feet thick. That condition
of the country can explain the number
of pot-holes from ten to sixty feet in
depth near the Mohawk River. They
were formed by water from the surface
of glacier falling into crevasses and
forming cascades, often thousand feet
in height The Cohoes elephant was
half million years ago, perhaps, en-
tombed in great mass of moving ice,
and when thawed out was washed into
the hole in which it was preserved so
many years.
In the collection of Rutgers College is
fragment of trlsk that is worn down
and polished on one side, showing plain
ly the peculiar glacial strie. A tusk in
the collection of the Philadelphia Acad-
envy of Sciences shows similar markings.
The American elephant was probably
exterminated by the glacial drift. A IA
nous place for these elephant remains is
the Big Bone Lick, in Kentucky. In
Warren County, New Jersey, some farm.
ers. in cutting peat in bog, found the
remains of six animals less than ten feet
below the surface. The most perfect
specimen was discovered at Newburgh,
N. Y. The skeleton is now in the British
museum. 1t is twelve feet in height, and
the tusks are ten feet in length. The ami
NAL roamed the western parts of the Uni.
tedStates and Canada, and along the en-
tire line of the Andes from five degrees
north latitude to forty degrees south, and
remains have been dug up at Quito, nearly
two miles above the level of the sea.
Their tusks are often plowed up by farm
ers in St. GATHERINGS, Canada West,
western Ohio, Alabama, Mississippi and
Vermont. In Nebraska there was a
smaller species. Compared to those ami
mails the elephants of to-day are pigmies.
The Newburgh elephant was twenty-five
feet in length and more that twelve feet
in height, and its feet were two feet
across. So perfectly was it preserved
that the remains of spruce and hemlock
branches that it had eaten were found in
the position of the stomach.
Those elephants rarely ranged further
north than the latitude of St. GATHERINGS,
but beyond this ranged hairy elephant
a third larger and nearly three times as
heavy as an elephant of to-day. From
the end of the trunk to that of the tail it
was thirty-fve feet in length. The
enormous tusks that reached out in great
curves were from ten to sixteen feet in
length and thirty inches in circumfer-
ence at the base.
All along the borders of the Arctic sea
the remains of these monsters are found,
and within few months an interesting
discovery has been made. A company
of men started from Sitka, intending to
search for the remains of ancient ele-
phantS on account of the ivory. They
followed the shores of the Polar sea for
two hundred miles without finding a
bone or tusk. When almost discour-
aged, disheartened and determined to
abandon the search, one of the party in
crossing q glacier broke through the ice
and disappeared. AS the mass of ice
was more than 1000 feet thick, he was
given up as lost, the nature of the Gre
vase being well known to the rest. One
of the party, however, volunteered to
attempt to learn the fate of the man. All
the rope and cord in the party was bound
together, and the searcher was lowered
into the hole. When about one hun
dred feet down the line slackened and a
hail was heard. The searcher was haul
ed to the surface, and he explained that
the crevasse was an enormous room in
the glacier, and that the incline was so
CrI.o HIral fbaf with Int E{+1a 80
could be cut and the bottom reached.
The line was made fast, and, armed with
axes, five of the party were lowered into
the chasm. They found foothold, and
soon reached the bottom, where the body
OF their comrade lay. He was only
stunned, and was soon restored. 1t was
then, their eyes having become accus-
toned to the darkness, that the nature
OF their surroundings became apparent.
The room was about five hundred feet in
circumference. Against the walls of the
ice dark, irregularshaped masses APP
peared. Each minute they became more
distinct, until the men saw high above
them the indistinct form of gigantic
animal standing erect in the icy mass
Below it, but further in, and fully in
closed, was another, and in short time
they traced the forms of thirty-tive en-
tombed monsters. Some were standing
erect on their massive legs, others were
lying on their backs as if they had fallen
into crevice and become wedged in,
while one huge monster had his head
down, with the body thrown over, as if it
had fallen headlong into the icy pit.
One of the animals was partly thawed
out, and the massive head and tusks
hung down. From the ponderous trunk
depended large icicles, reaching the floor
and forming a column for his support
The bodies were entirely covered with a
thick, hairy coat resembling jute, but
frozen so firmly that it could not be cut.
An entire herd had been entrapped in
some manner, and was gradually moving
in the body of the glacier toward the sea,
to be some day cast up on the shore.
Net one of the creatures, not even a tusk
could be obtained without months of
work, and the men reluctantly abandoned
them.
Early in the century fisherman living
near the mouth of the Lena river, in ST.
IBERIA, discovered one of these monsters
protuding from an ice cliff on the shores
of the The t,11ply he onJ LooJ