The World Before the Deluge

The Mastodon was, to all appearance, very nearly of the size and form of our Elephant — his body, however, being somewhat longer, while his limbs, on the contrary, were a little thicker. He had tusks, and very probably a trunk, and is chiefly distinguished from the

existing Elephant by the form of his molar teeth, which form the most distinctive character in his organisation. These teeth are nearly rectangular, and present on the surface of their crown great conical tuberosities, with rounded points disposed in pairs to the number of four or five, according to the species. Their form is very distinct, and may be easily recognised. They do not bear any resemblance lo those of the carnivora, but are like those of herbivorous animals, and particularly those of the Hippopotamus. The molar teeth are at first sharp and pointed, but when the conical points are ground down by mastication, they assume the appearance presented in

Fig. 1 6 1. When, from continued grinding, the conical teat-like points are more deeply worn, they begin to assume the appearance shown in

Fig. 1 60. In Fig. 162 we rep«:esent the head and lower jaw of the Miocene Mastodon; from which it will appear that the animal had two projecting tusks in the lower jaw, corresponding with tw© of much larger dimensions wdiich projected from the upper jaw. It was only towards the middle of the last century that the Mastodon first attracted attention in Europe.

Fig. 161.— Molar teeth of Mastodon, worn. Abouta i, ^ ^.i,the year 1705,^ - itV:^is ^-J'true,^ some bones of this animal had been found at Albany, now the capital of New York, but the discovery attracted litde attention. In 1739, a French officer, ]\I. de Longueil, traversed the virgin forests bordering the great river Ohio, in order to reach the great river Mississippi, and the savages who escorted him accidentally discovered on the borders of a marsh various bones, some of which seemed to be those of unknown animals. In this turfy marsh, which the natives designated the Great Salt Lake, in consequence of the many streams charged with salt which lose themselves in it, herds of wild ruminants still seek its banks, attracted by the salt — for which they have a great fondness — such being the reason probably which had caused the accumulation, at this point, of the remains of so large a number of quadrupeds belonging to these remote ages in the history of the globe. M. de Longueil carried some of these bones with him, and, on his return to France, he presented them to Daubenton and Buffon; they consisted of a femur, one extremity of a tusk, and three molar teeth. Daubenton, after mature exainination,

declared the teeth to be those of a Hippopotamus; the tusk and the gigantic femur, according to his report, belonged to an Elephant; so that they were not even considered to be parts of one and the same animal. Buffon did not share this opinion, and he was not long in converting Daubenton, as well as other French naturalists, to his views. Buffon declared that the bones belonged to an Elephant, whose race had lived only in the primitive ages of the globe. It was then, only, that the fundamental notion of extinct species of animals, exclusively peculiar to ancient ages of the K world, began to be entertained for the first time by naturalists — a notion which laid dormaiit during nearly a century, before it bore the admirable fruits which have since so enriched the natural sciences and philosophy. Buffon gave the fossil the name of the Anivial or Elcpha7it of the Ohio, but he deceived himself as to its size, believing it to be from six to eight times the size of our Fig. 162. — Head of the Mastodon of the Miocene period. A, B, the whole head; C, lower jaw. existing Elephant; an estimate which he was led to make by an erroneous notion with regard to the number of the Elephant's teeth. The Animal of the Ohio had only four molars, -while Buffon imagined that it might have as many as sixteen, confounding the germs, or supplementary teeth, which exist in the young animal, with the permanent teeth of the adult individual. In reality, however, the Mastodon was not much larger than the existing species of African Elephant. The discovery of this animal had produced a great impression in Europe. Becoming masters of Canada by the peace of 1763, the English sought eagerly for more of these precious remains. The geographer Croghan traversed anew the region of the Great Salt I^ke,

pointed out by De Longueil, and found there some bones of the same nature. In 1767 he forwarded many cases to London, addressing

them to divers naturalists. ColHnson, among others, the friend and correspondent of Frankhn, who had his share in this consignment, took the opportunity of sending a molar tooth to Buffon.

It was not, however, till 1801 that the remains of the perfect skeleton were discovered. An American naturalist, named Peale, was

fortunate enough to' get together two nearly complete skeletons ofthis important animal. Having been apprised that many large bones had been found in the marly clay on the banks of the Hudson, near Newburg, in the State of New York, Mr. Peale proceeded to that

Fi^. 164. — Mastbdon restored.

locality. In the spring of 1801 a considerable part of one skeleton was found by the farmer who had dug it out of the ground, but, unfortunately, it was much mutilated by his awkwardness, and by the precipitancy of the workmen. Having purchased these fragments, Mr. Peale sent them on to Philadelphia.

In a marsh, situated five leagues west of the Hudson, the same gentleman discovered, six months after, a second skeleton of the Mastodon, consisting of a perfect jaw and a great number of bones.

THE WORLD BEFORE THE DELUGE.

34^ With the bones thus collected, the naturalist managed to construct two nearly complete skeletons. One of these still remains in the Museum of Philadelphia; the other was sent to London, where it was exhibited publicly. Discoveries nearly analogous to these followed, the most curious of which was made in this manner by Mr. Barton, a Professor of the University of Pennsylvania. At a depth of six feet in the ground, and under a great bank of chalk, bones of the Mastodon were found sufficient to form a skeleton. One of the teeth found weighed about seventeen pounds

(Fig. 165);cumstancebut whichthemadecir-this discovery the more remarkable was, that in the middle of the bones, and enveloped in a kind of sac which was probably the stomach of the animal, a mass of vegetable matter was discovered, partly bruised, and composed of small leaves and Molar tooth of ^Mastodon. branches, among which a species of rush has been recognised which is yet common in Virginia. We cannot doubt that these were the undigested remains of the food, which the animal had browsed on just before its death.

The aboriginal natives of North America called the Mastodon the father of the ox. A French officer named Fabri wrote thus to Buffon in 1748. The natives of Canada and Louisiana, where these remains are abundant, speak of the Mastodon as a fantastic creature which mingles in all their traditions and in their ancient national songs. Here is one of these songs, which Fabri heard in Canada: *' When the great Manitou descended to the earth, in order to satisfy himself that the creatures he had created were happy, he interrogated all the animals. The bison replied that he would be quite contented with his fate in the grassy meadows, where the grass reached his belly, if he were not also compelled to keep his eyes constantly, turned towards the mountains to catch the first sight of the father of

oxeti, as he descended, with fury, to devour him and his companions."The Cheyenne Indians have a tradition that these great animals lived in former times, conjointly with a race of men whose size was proportionate to their own, but that the Great Being destroyed both by repeated strokes of his terrible thunderbolts.

The native Indians of Virginia had another legend. As these gigantic Elephants destroyed all other animals specially created to supply the wants of the Indians, God, the thunderer, destroyed them; a single one only succeeded in escaping. It was " the great male, which presented its head to the thunderbolts and shook them off as they fell; but being at length wounded in the side, he took to flight towards the great lakes, where he remains hidden to this day." All these simple fictions prove, at least, that the Mastodon has lived upon the earth at some not very distant period. We shall see, in fact, that it was contemporaneous with the Mammoth, which, it is now supposed, may have been co-existent with the earlier races of mankind, or only preceded a little the appearance of man.

Buffon, as we have said, gave to this great fossil animal the name of the Elephant of the Ohio; it has also been called the Mammoth of the Ohio. In England it was received with astonishment. Dr. Hunter showed clearly enough, from the thigh-bone and the teeth, that it was no Elephant; but having heard of the existence of the Siberian Mammoth, he at once came to the conclusion that they v/ere bones of that animal. He then declared the teeth to be carnivorous, and the idea of a carnivorous elephant became one of the v/onders of the day. Cuvier at once dissipated the clouds of doubt which surrounded the subject, pointing out the osteological differences between the several species, and giving to the American animal the appropriate name of Mastodon (from fidaros, a teat, and HSovs, a tootJi), or teat-like-toothed animal.

Many bones of the Mastodon have been found in America since that time, but remains are rarely met with in Europe, except as fragments — as the portion of a jaw-bone discovered in the Red Crag near Norwich, which Professor Owen has named Mastodon angustidens. It was even thought, for a long time, with Cuvier, that the Mastodon belonged exclusively to the New World; but the discovery of many of the bones mixed with those of the Mammoth, i^Elephas primigcnius) has dispelled that opinion. Bones of Mastodon have been found in great numbers in the Val d'Amo. In 1858 a magnificent skeleton was discovered at Turin.

The form of the teeth of the Mastodon shows that it fed, like the

Elephant, on the roots and succulent parts of vegetables; and this is confirmed by the curious discovery made in America by Barton. It lived, no doubt, on the banks of rivers and on moist and marshy lands. Besides the great Mastodon of which we have spoken, there existed a Mastodon one-third smaller than the Elephant, and which inhabited nearly all Europe.