Assertion: mastodon | /r/SymbolOf | american vigor
Facets:
Source sentences:
text: Jefferson was misled by his hopes that the mastodon and Megalonyx were mighty ferocious carnivores that would symbolize American vigor (and contradict European claims of the inferiority of American wildlife), but he was in many ways the progenitor of our modern fascination with another set of monsters from the west—dinosaurs.