The Dickinson press., 1891-10-31

VI Sl0 ol1iICu outllCS MSSG VI NEW LllN
land where remains of mastodons have
not been found at IL time or another.
The country was full of them. l believe
that a mastodon tooth was found in this
city some twenty years ago, and several
bones We're found near the Brighton
lock. The mammoth bore about the
same relation to the mastodon that the
Indian elephant does to the African.
"Mastodons were moro numerous il
this country and mammoths in Europe
and Asia.
THE STUDY OF BONES.
II have here" continued Professor
Ward, "the skull and upper jaw of a
baby mastodon which, as you see, is
very perfect. The teeth are milk teeth,
and you can see one of the second teeth
imbedded in the upper jaw. The teeth
formed at the real and were pushed for
ward. say a baby m%astodon, and so it
was; but it was as large as the largest
OK to be seen at a county fair. Under
the upper layer of skull you see this sort
of honeycomb of bone. You know
enough of anatomy to remember that
the human skull is composed of an
upper and under layer of hard bone,
with softer bone between. The human
head does not require to be large to be
in proportion to the body, and a caput
just large enough to hold the brain is all
that is required.
"An elephant, mastodon or mammoth
does not require IL large brain, but they
all need a massive head. Here you have
the upper and under layer, as in the
human skull, but the porous bone be-
tween is magnified enormously. 1t is
nearly a foot in thickness in some of the
larger specimens. l remember when 1
was on the coast of Africa seeing what l
supposed to be an enormous hornets
nest. The natives told me it was the
head of an elephant which they had
killed tEsee OF four years previous. The
upper layer of the skull had been shelled
off, leaving the middle honeycomb of
bone exposed to view. 1t was some time
before l could bring myself to believe
that it was really an elephants skull"
Professor Ward showed his visitor his
collection of mammoth and mastodon
bones. He has nearly enough of different
sizes to reconstruct All entire animal,
but, of course, the variation in size
would prevent this. 1t is much more
satisfactory in the results obtained to
take these specimens for models and re-
construct a skeleton from wood. "I sup
pose" said the reporter, after prolonged
inspection of these curiosities, 81 sup
pose that human eyes never saw these
wonderful animals that roamed over the
country in such vast numbers so long
ago."
THE ONLY EVIDENCE.
"You are mistaken" said Professor
Ward, "though your mistake has been
that of the world of science until recent
ly. Bones of the mastodon have been
found split open in such IL way that the
object of breaking them was evident. 1t
was to obtain the marrow within. But
more, the stone head of u Ratchet with
which the work was done has been found
near by. Now, there are no animals
which use stone hatchets to break up
bones. That Ratchet head was once the
implement of some primeval warrior. A
shoulder blade of the mastodon, a bone
comparatively thin, has been found
pierced, as if by a spear, and the spear
head has been found with it. The spea,
was evidently thrust inland withdrawn
from the body of the animal, and when
it was withdrawn its head was probably
torn off. Monkeys don't carry spears.
"But, though these evidences are con-
vlncing enough, they are not the best
proof we have that ma existed in the
days of the mammoth and the mastodon
and has survived them both. Anti
quarians who have spent so much time
in an endeavor to discover the meaning
OF the mounds erected by the mound
builders have made one thing certain.
Many of these mounds were constructed
in the shape of animals and birds. There
on the wall hang a number of facsimiles
of these mounds. They were prepared
by a member of the Milwaukee His
torical society. There is one which evil
IDENTIFY represents a hawk or some similar
bird of prey with outstretched wings,
and there is another which evidently
portrays some squirrellike animal with
a remarkably long tail, and here you
have as perfect a representation of an
e~lephantlike animal as could we'll be con-
trived.
CHOW, had the mound builders been
as learned in comparative anatomy as we
are, and had they reconstructed a mas
todon as we have, they could never have
understood the meaning of the cavity in
the skull which indicates to us that the
animal had a trunk. We could never
have done that had we not seen an ele-
phant. No, the mound builders saw the
mastodons before they became extinct.
They hunted them and, perhaps, We're
practically instrumental in their exter-
mination."-Rcchester Post Express.