The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1911-08-30
FIND The CRAVE
OF A MONSTER
The Beast May Have Been
"Three Stores" High.
MOLARS SEVEN INCHES ACROSS

California Mastodon's Teeth Discover
ed In Earth With Trees Six Feet In
Diameter Growing Above Them.
Tree Trunks Had Turned to Coal.
Five gigantic teeth, which in some
prehistoric period probably graced the
cavernous mouth of a mastodon, pred
ecessor of the mammoth and one of the
most colossal creatures that have ever
inhabited the earth, have been un-
earthed in the old Doggett mine on the
banks of the klamath river, near
Walker, Siskiyou county, Cal. The
three largest of these stupendous
mOlars contain four cuspids each, each
tooth measuring seven inches across
from the first to the last cuspid and
a little over six inches from the tip
of the root, or that part of it which
remains to the top of the center Gus
pid. The teeth measure four and a
half inches in width. In remarkable
state of preservation, they were found
in pocket of sand and gravel eight
cen feet under the surface of the
earth
A better idea of the size of the teeth
may be gathered from the fact that
they are about fifteen times the size
of the tooth of the modern horse and
about eight times the size of the molar
of the lion or tiger. The size of the
jaw of this giant creature may be i'm
agined, therefore, to have been eight
to ten times the size of that of the lion
or tiger and about fifteen times the
size of horses mouth.
That the teeth were those of an
herbivorous animal seems evident
from their erenness. They are too
large to have belonged to the man.
moth. This would seem to indicate
that they belonged to the mastodon,
which lowered in size over the mann
moth as that creature did over the
modern elephant.
There Were Men Then Too.
Close to the teeth was found an an
cient stone shatchet which is believed
to belong to a period coexistent with
that in which the animal to which the
iCCIh ISFOht5Cu 10 W ulNb
lived. Indians of the. Klamath river
tribes on being shown the hatchet de-
clared that they had never seen or
heard of anything resembling it, and
the medicine men and chiefs stated
that the traditions of their people con-
tanned no account to show that the
hatchet had ever been made or used
by them.
In the same pocket where the teeth
were found was a horn seven and
half feet long, which crumbled in the
hands of the shovelmen when they
attempted to take it up. The horn
measured at the butt fourteen inches
in diameter, but it bore no resem-
blance to the horn of the prehistoric
mammoth. The horn was Of the same
contour as that of ordinary cattle and
contained a core and a thin shell SINH
lar to that of the OK.
These relics were found in stratum
of earth which bears evidence of be-
ing the ancient channel of the Kla-
math or some other river from which
the klamath was evolved. The spot
is fully 200 feet from the present bed
of the river, but runs about parallel
to the present channel.
Laid There 10000 Years.
The general formation of the earth
gives every indication of having been
massed ages and ages ago, and from
the trees and the partly petrifed trunks
of trees which were found at bedrock
twelve feet under where the relics
were unearthed there is every reason
to believe that the teeth had lain i'm
bedded where they were found upward
of 10000 years ago.
The enamel of the teeth is in a
splendid state Of preservation and is
green in color. On the tip of several
of the cuspids are cavities such as
might be found in the teeth of an or
dinary animal. Savants at the Uni
versity of California are to be asked
to try to fix the identity of the crea-
ture that possessed the teeth.