Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1891-09-17
A TALK ABOUT MAsToDoNs.
why Complete Skeletons Are Not Found
at the Present Day.

A PoSt-ExpresS reporter had an inter-
esting talk with Prof Ward on the sub
ject of mastodon remains just discover
ed at Oakfield. "a man came to me
yesterday" said he, land showed me
rib which he said he had dug up. 1t
| 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; perhaps skunk will
carry some of the smaller one into his
hole. Bones decompose If there is
flood they become scattered. So, you
see, before time has dug a grave in
which the remains of our imagi-
nary 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 England, where remains
of mastodons have not been found at
one time or another. The country was
full of them. l believe that a mastodon
tooth was found in this city some TWEEN
ty years ago, and several bones were
found near the Brighton lock- The
mammoth bore about the same relation
to the mastodon that the Indian ele-
plant does to the African. Mastodons
were more numerous in this country
and mammoths in Europe and Asia.
Tons of mastodons' ivory are found in
the north and sent to England, where
they are turned into billiard balls and
other articles of ivory in which a pure
color is of no Importance. as the ivory
is usually stained by time, though other
wise perfect.
Il have here" continued Prof. Ward,
1.-The skull and upper jaw of baby
mastodon, which, as you see, is very
perfect. The teeth are milk teeth, and
you can see one of the second teeth i'm
bedded in the upper jaw. The teeth
formed at the rear, and were pushed
forward. l say baby mastodon. and
so it was: but it was as large as the
largest OK to be seen at 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 ele
plant, mastodon, or mammoth does
not require large brain, but they all
need a massive head. Here you have
the upper and the under layer, as in
the human skull, but the porous bone
between is magnified enormously. 1t
is nearly foot in thickness in some of
the larger specimens l remember,
when / was on the coast of Africa, see
ing what l 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 mid
die honeycomb of bone exposed to
view. 1t was some time before I could
bring myself to believe that it was
really an elephants skull"
Prof. Ward showed his visitor his col
lection of mammoth and mastodon
bones. He has nearly enough of diff
ferent sizes, to reconstruct an entire
animal but, of course, the variation in
size would prevent this. 1t is much
more satisfactory, in the results OBJ
tanned, to take these specimens for
models and reconstruct skeleton from
wood.
Il suppose" said the reporter, after
prolonged inspection of these many
curiosities-''I suppose that human eyes
never saw these wonderful animals
which roamed over the country in such
vast numbers SO long ago"
"You are mistaken" said Prof. Ward,
Though your mistake has been that of
the world of science until recently.
Bones of the mastodon have been found
split open in such way that the OBJ
ject of breaking them was evident.
1t was to obtain the marrow within.
But more: The stone head of a
Ratchet, with which the work had been
done, was 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 prime
val warrior. A shoulder blade of the
mastodon, a bone comparatively thin,
has been found pierced, as 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 convincing enough, they
are not the best proof we have that man
existed in the days of the mammoth
and the mastodon, and has survived
them both Antiquarians who have spent
so much time in an endeavor to discov-
er the meaning of the mounds erected
by the Mound Builders have made one
thing certain. Many of these mounds
We're constructed in the shape of ami
mails and birds. There, on the wall.
hang number of fac-similes of these
mounds. They were prepared by
member of the Milwaukee Historical
society. There is one which evidently
represents hawk, or some similar bird
of prey, with outstretched wings; and
there is another, which evidently por-
trays some squirrel-lilSe animal with
remarkably long tail; and here you
have as perfect representation of an
elephant-like animal couldswell be
contrived Now, had the Mound Build
ers been learned in comparative anato-
my as we are, and had they reconstruct
ed mastodon, 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
H., .la r. NJ