The Monitor., 1891-10-02
BONES OF MAST0D0SS.
WHY COMPLETE SKELETONS ARE
RARELY FOUND NOWADAYS.
Portions of Animals Are Frequently
Carried Away by Smaller Creatures and
Then the Bones Generally Decompose.
Evidence That Men Saw Them.

~
with Professor Ward on the subject Of
the mastodon remains discovered at Oak
field. "a man came to me yesterday"
said he, 'sand showed me rib which he
said he had dug mp Ii was certainly a
rnastodon rib He said he was going to
dig for the rest of it. but doubt if he
finds very much more ION 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 viii carry some Of the
smaller ones into his hole. Bones de-
compose. If there Is a food they become
scattered.
so, you see, before TING has dug Il
grave in which the remains Of our i'm
aginary OK may rest undistnrbed foi
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 raa todons have
not been found at one time or another.
The country was full Of them believe
that 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 fnastodon 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
baby 1nastodon winch, rs 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 We're pushed for
ward. l say baby mastedon, and so it
was; but it was as large As the largest
OK to be seen at ii county fair. Under
the upper layer of skull yoa 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 10 hold the brain is all
that is required
'An elephant, nl5st0,lon or mammoth
does not require large brain, but they
all need massive head Here You have
the upper and under layer, as in the
human skull, but the porous bone be-
tween is magnifed enormously 1t Is
nearly foot in thickness i'll some of the
larger specimens remember when /
was on the coast Of Africa seeing what !
supposed to be an enormous hornets
nest. The natives told ne it was the
head Of aa elephant which they had
killed three or four years previous. The
upper layer of the skull had been shelled
off, leaving the middle honeyconb 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 ia size
would prevent this Ii is much more
EdllS4CElOIH III lllE lf-SNitS ODtdliiEl ~
take these specimens for models and re-
construct skeleton from wood Il sup
pose" said the reporter, after prolonged
inspection CT these euriUsities, Il sup
pose that human eyes never saw these
wonderful animals that roalned 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. 1t
was to obtain the marrow within But
more, the stone head Of Il hatchet with
| which the work WIS done has been found
near by. Now, there are no animals
which use stone batehets to break up
bones. That hatchet head WAS once the
implement of some primeval warrior. y
shoulder blade Of the lnastodon, d bone
comparatively thin. has been found
pierced, as if by spear, and the spear
head has been found with it, The spea.
was evidently thrust in and withdrawn
from the body of the animal, and when
it was withdrawn its head was probably
torn off. Monkeys dent carry spears
''But, though these evidences are con
yincing enough, they are not the best
proof we have that man existed in the
days Of the mammoth ana the nastodon
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 aud birds. There
on the wall hang Il number of facsimiles
of these mounds. They were prepared
by member Of tie 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
remarkably long tail and here you
have as perfect representation Of an
elephantlike animal as could well be con
| triyed.
''Now, 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
L., f.I -.