Little Falls herald. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1889-1950, 1900-01-26

testants were huge nammoths and mas.
todonS ON one side, lightning aud the
wrath OF an Indian deity on the other
All that is left 10 tell the terrible story
is the huge bones that have been exca-
waited near Big Bone Springs, Boone
county, Ky.
chief. is thrilling one. When General
William Henry Harrison, grandfather Of
the present ex-President Harrison, had
concluded the treaty with the Indians
for the great Northwest Territories, he
asked the Indian chiefs if they could in
in any way account for the numherless
mighty bones of mastodons and ele-
plants that lay in such marvellous col
lections within the small valley at Big
Bone Springs. An old chief, gray with
many winters, rose and answered the
| question thus:
MANY moons ago, ere the white man
came and while the hunting was yet
good, the elk, the buffalo and the deer
went often to the: valley OF springs to
drink the smelling waters. But many
and mighty mamnioths also came from
! AFFAIR." to drink, and as the days went on
they killed or frightened away the elk,
! The buffalo and the deer, so that the In
| dams could hunt no longer. Then the
! Great Spirit was angry at the MANI
! moths. and he came down from the sky,
and from high hill he hurled his thun-
! derboltS among the great animals and
slew them in countless numbers within
the valley. Mad with terror, they tore
| through the pathways OF the valley, and
| til. deer and buffalo tlr;,t remained fed
! into the forests, bat the Great Spirit S
] thundcrbults were more terrible and
! moro destructive to the mamlnoths than
: they had been to the game. All save one
! was killed before they could rush from
/ the valley. This great bull, the father
| of the herd, had only his long tnsks
broken off by the lightning. He was old
and cunning. and he went screaming
across the hills. sweeping trees out Of his
/. path as an Indian would a bit Of grass,
| until he came to the great river. Here
he paused only long enough to gather
himself for Il mighty bound. Then. leap
ing. he cleared the wide Ohio and tore
OH through the forest 10 the great lakes
/ and across them into the cold northeast
! Here he disappeared and was seen nc
more. and here lie lives to this day, his
tusks gone, shaggy and gray with age
but still terrible TO beholdy' \
Such was the answer that General
| Harrison received but whatever Of truth
! there is, or is not, in the Indian legend
accounting for the bones found and to be
found in the valley at Big Bone Springs,
| at least the strange discovery made by
fishermen on the coast Of Labrador i'll
/ 1897 lends a weird plausibility TO the
old chiefs story, "..
L The fisherman in question saw, while
L tramping the beach one day, huge body
I frozei, in, the ice cliff above him. As the
Ice melted the body sank to the ground,
and he, procuring aid, skinned it. The
/ skin was put aboard Il Russian vessel
and taken To Russia. 1t proved to be the
! skin, Of an arctic elephant, "a feet long
i and II; feet high, and the Royal Zoolog,
/ ical society Of Russia has it now. The
!, Smithsonian institution at Washington
!. heard of the matter and has since had
i an exact reproduction. Of the shin made
/ and mounted for its museum. Now il
does not take much imagination to read
in this end Of the fisherman sequel K
! the Indian legend! T. Indeed when one
! Indian was told Of it he said the great
!: mammoth, which had escaped into the
4, northeast, had been found at last. S i
4 .{ The hamlet Of Big Bone Springs, while
+ many years old, il still but a little clls
/ ter OF houses, lying in n secluded, out q
4 the way valley in the Kentucky hills
I come % or, more miles southwest Of Gin
4, cinnali. Once famous for its minera
4. a waters and the remains Of pIehistort,