The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1891-11-09
BONES OF MASTODONS.
WHY COMPLETE SKELETONS ARE
RARELY FOUND NOWADAYS.

Then the Bones Generally DecOmpose.
Evidence That Men Saw Them.
A reporter has had an interesting talk
with Professor Ward on the subject Of
the mastodon remains discovered at Oak
field. GA man came to me yesterday"
said he, ''and showed me rib which he
said he had dug up. It was certainly
mastodon rib He said he was going to
dig for the rest of it, but doubt if he
finds very much more. You can easily
see how this might be. Suppose an OK
gets stuck in the mud and dies, wolves
tear the flesh and gnaw the bones; per-
haps a skunk will carry some Of the
smaller ones into his hole. Bones de-
compose. IF there is food they become
scattered.
$50, you see, before time has dug a
grave in which the remains of our i'm
aginary OK may rest undisturbed for
ages, chance has scattered them far and
wide. SO it is with the fossil remains
of the mastodon and mammoth, and the
man who finds one bone Of the animal
and digs for the rest is very apt to be
disappointed. There is hardly county
in the United States west Of New Eng
land where remains of mastodons have
not been found at one time or another.
The country was full of them. I believe
that a mastOdon tooth was found in this
city some twenty years ago, and several
bones were 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 more numerous in
this country and mammoths in Europe
and Asia.
THE STUDY OF BONES.
Il have here" continued Professor
Ward, 1.-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 rear and were pushed for
ward. I say q baby mastodon, and so it
was; but it was as large as the largest
OK to be seen st county fair. Under
the upper layer of skull you see this sort
of honeyconb 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.
can elephant, mastodon or mammoth
does not require a 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 magnifed enormously. It is
nearly foot in thickness in some of the
larger specimens. l remember when I
was on the coast of Africa seeing what I
supposed to be an enormous hornets
nest. The natives told me it was the
head of an elephant which they had
killed three or 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 an entire animal,
but, Of course, the variation in size
would prevent this. It is much more
satisfactory in the results obtained to
take these specimens for models and re-
construct q skeleton from wood. s'I sup
pose, said the reporter, after a prolonged
inspection of these curiosities, ST 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 way that the
object of breaking them was evident. It
was to obtain the marrow within. But
more, the stone head of 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, bone
comparatively thin, has been found
pierced, as if by spear, and the spear
head has been found with it. The spear
was evidently thrust in and 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-
vincing enough, they are not the best
proof we have that man existed liz the
days of the mammoth and the mastodon
and has survived them both. Anti
quarians who have spent so much time
III 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 member of the Milwaukee His
torical society. There is one which evil
IDENTIFY represents hawk or some similar
bird of prey with outstretched wings,
and there is another which evidently
portrays some squirrellike animal with
remarkably long tail, and here you
have as perfect a representation of an
elephantlike animal as could we'll be coli
trived.
"Now, had the mound builders been
as learned in comparative anatomy as we
are. and had they reconstructed mas
todon as we have, they could never have
understood IL