News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-05-11
MONSTERS OF ANCIENT TIMES.
When Elephants Larger Than jun
bo Roamed Through the MiddI
States

uuUO ndSA U ~ aCiIOAAn6uo1CC w OlAk
elephants that used to stamp aroun6
this country" said a professor of natural
history when asked by reporter of the
San whether the beast Just landed was
of extraordinary size. :" In 1866, while
excavating in Cohoes, N. Y, workmen
broke into what seemed to be big poi
hole or well, such as is seen sometimes
in the rock bed of rivers. 1t was full Of
muck and peaty soil, and at the bottom
were found the chief bones of an inn
mense elephant. 1t was determined
that the animal had been washed inGd
the hole when New York State was COW
cred with glaciers hundreds, perhaps
thousands, of feet thick. That condi-
ton of the country can explain the num-
Der 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 a million years ago, perhaps, en-
tombed in a great mass of moving ice,
and when thawed out was washed into
the hole in which it was preserved SO
many years.
SIN the collection in Rutgers Col
lege is a fragment of tusk that is worn
down and polished on one side, showing
plainly the peculiar glacial strie. A
tusk in the collection of the Philadel
phia Academy of Sciences shows similar
markings. The American elephant was
probably exterminated by the glacial
drift. A famous place for these ele-
phant remains in the Big Bone Lick, in
Kentucky. In Warren County, New
Jersey, some farmers, in cutting peat
in a 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 Brit
ish Museum. It is twelve feet IN height.
and the tusks are ten feet in length.
The animals roamed the western parts
of the United States and Canada, and
along the entire line of the Andes from
5 degrees north latitude to 40 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 farmers in st. GATHERINGS,
Canada West, western Ohio, Alabama,
and Vermont. In Nebraska
there was smaller species. Compared
to those animals the elephants of to-day
are pigmies. The Newburgh elephant
was twenty. five feet in length and more
than twelve feet in height, and its feet
were two feet across. So perfectly was
it preserved that the remains of spruce
and harnlnnl hronahns that it had eaten
were found -bfr0-F Fyy,a,ss4y,r.
fThose elephants rarely ranged fur
ther north than the latitude of st.
but beyond this ranged a
hairy elephant 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-five feet in
length. The enormous tusks that
reached out in great curves were from
ten to sixteen feet in length and thirty
inches in circumference at the base.
"All along the borders of the Arctic
Sea the remains of these monsters are
found, and within a few months an in
teresting discovery has been made. A
company of men started from
5itka, intending to search for the re-
mains of ancient elephants on account
Of the ivory. They followed the shores
Of the Polar Sea for 200 miles without
finding a bone or tusk. When almost
disheartened, and deter
mined to abandon the search, one of
the party in crossing a 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 cravasse being well known
to the rest. One of the party, however,
to attempt to learn the
tate 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 hundred feet down the
line slackened, and hail was heard.
The searcher was hauled to the surface,
and he explained that the crevasse was
an enormous room in the glacier, and
that the incline was so gradual that
with but little work steps could be cut
and the bottom reached. The line was
made fast, and, armed with axes, five
Of the party were lowered into the
ohasm. They found foothold and
soon reached the bottom, where the
body of their comrade lay. He was
only stdnned, and was soon restored.
It was then, their eyes having become
accustumed to the darkness, that the
nature of their surroundings became
The room was about five hundred feet
in circumference Against the walls of
ice dark, irregular shaped masses ap-
peared. Each minute they became
more distinct, until the men saw high
above them the indistinct form of a
gigantic animal standing erect in the
lev mass. Below it, but further in,
and fully enclosed, was another, and In
a short time they traced the forms of
thirty-five entombed 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 its head down, with the
body thrown over as if it had fallen
headlong into the 10y 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 column for its 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 en-
trapped 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. Not one of the
creatures, nor even 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 Siberia, discovered one of