Rembrandt Peale

“ The bolts of heaven were hurled upon the cruel destroyers alone, and the mountains echoed with the bellowings of death. All were killed except one male, the fiercest of the race, and him even the artillery of the skies assailed in vain. ”

“ I shall only observe here, that in the jaw of this animal, like those of all others of a carnivorous nature, the roots or fangs are inserted into the mass of bone, which not only surrounds the roots, but divides one tooth from the other; whereas in the elephant the grinders occupy one large and uniform cavity, from which they are gradually protruded as they are required for the purpose of grinding. ”

“ The world is now in possession of two undisputed skeletons of this animal, found in such situations as leave no room for conjecture; each skeleton being dug up in a separate place, without any intermixture of foreign bones, and each bone exactly adapted to its corresponding points of articulation. ”

“ The only instance of hair being found with the remains of this animal, occurred in a morass belonging to Mr. A. Colden, in the neighbourhood where this skeleton was found. The hair was coarse, long and brown, a large mass of it together, and so rotten that, after a few days exposure to the air, it fell into a powder.
The skeleton of the Mammoth [3] , merely as a skeleton, is certainly entitled to some attention; as the skeleton of a very large and non-descript animal it becomes more interesting, to those in particular who are disposed to think on the subject ”

“ I believe it has been well enough ascertained that the teeth of this animal are perfectly carnivorous, as they have every quality of form and substance that is required: the roots are not in such a massy body as the elephant’s, and the teeth are composed of a bony substance projecting into strong obtuse points to form the grinding surface, and all this surface encrusted with a strong coat of enamel; whereas all graminivorous animals have teeth whose grinding surface is flat, and composed of an intermixture of bone and enamel ”

“ THE MAMMOTH. The curiosity of the scientific world has for a long time been justly excited by the fossil remains of a non-descript animal, which have been found in North America and Siberia, but generally in so mutilated a condition as to give but very imperfect ideas either of the size or kind of animal to which they must have belonged. ”

“ Jefferson, on the Mammoth bones, says, “To whatever animal we ascribe these remains, it is certain such a one has existed in America, and that it has been the largest of all terrestrial beings. It should have sufficed to have rescued the earth it inhabited and the atmosphere it breathed, from the imputation of impotence in the conception and nourishment of animal life on a large scale ”

“ In carnivorous animals the surface of the enamel is constantly changing, and is finally worn off and the teeth rendered useless; but in graminivorous animals the veins of enamel always present the same figure, only that in youth they are regularly protuberant, and in age regularly worn down by a side-motion of the under jaw, which all of them have. The jaw of the Mammoth was incapable of this motion, as is very evident from the condyloid process, which is finished with an oblong head inserted into a transverse groove ”

“ It was a more difficult task to determine the number of dorsal and lumber vertebræ, as those we dug up ourselves were not only found much scattered, but several which had been dug up by the farmer were in the possession of some of the workmen in the neighbourhood, to the distance of seven miles round: these we collected with all possible care, and had the satisfaction to find they agreed in number with those of the elephant; still further corroborated by a perfect agreement between them and the nineteen pair of ribs, leaving three vertebræ for the loins. ”

“ Hence it appears that four animals of enormous magnitude have formerly existed in America, perhaps at the same time, and of natures very opposite: 1st, The Mammoth, carnivorous; 2d, An animal whose graminivorous teeth, larger than, and different from, those of the elephant, are sometimes found; 3d, The great Indian bull; and, 4th, An animal probably of the sloth kind, as appears on comparison with the bones found in Virginia, and a skeleton found in South America, and preserved in the Museum at Madrid. ”

“ Buffon and Daubenton having conceived an idea that all the Siberian and some of the American bones belonged unquestionably to elephants, render their observations almost unintelligible, from the confident use of the term elephant in cases where it was at least doubtful, especially as it is now evident, that the same animal was native in the north of both countries; with one probable difference, that the bones of the American animal are comparatively thicker than the Siberian ”

“ The seventy-five feet of black earth, which they calculated to be the length of a man whose thigh-bone was supposed seventeen feet, could have been nothing but a small morass divested of its water; and hence the decayed state of the bones.
It appears that about the year 1740, great numbers of bones, of a similar kind, were found in Kentucky on the Ohio; but they were collected with such eagerness, and forwarded to Europe so hastily, that it shortly became impossible to distinguish one set of bones from another, so as to ascertain their number, proportion, and kind ”

“ The surface of the country, though by no means so level as it appears from the mountains, is formed of single hills, prominences, or swelling knolls, which have the appearance of having been caused by the agitation of water. Many of the cavities between these knolls are dry, others are in the state of ponds, but an infinite number contain morasses, which must originally have been ponds, supplied by springs which still flow at their bottoms, and filled, in the course of ages, with a succession of shellfish and the decay of vegetables ”

“ After the laborious task of mending the ribs and other bones, and putting together the fragments of the head (of which no other idea could be formed than appears in the skeleton) , it remained to determine the number and situation of each kind. The three setts were kept distinct; out of the two collections which were most numerous it was intended to form two skeletons, by still keeping them separate, and filling up the deficiencies in each by artificial imitations from the other, and from counterparts in themselves. ”

“ The elephant, which is a graminivorous animal, is armed with tusks, more properly called by the French defences; but to me it appears nothing inconsistent with the nature of a carnivorous animal that it should be furnished with a similar weapon of offence and defence, and indeed from their form somewhat better calculated to answer those objects ”

“ Forests were laid waste at a meal; the groans of expiring animals were every where heard; and whole villages, inhabited by men, were destroyed in a moment. The cry of universal distress extended even to the region of peace in the west ”

“ The supposition that they were the bones of a giant was scarcely less probable than that they should have belonged to a quadruped of which not the smallest vestige could be traced.—Prepossessed, therefore, with the certainty of their being human bones, a calculation was made of the height of the supposed giant, very probably from a broken piece of thigh-bone, and a length of seventeen feet was calculated in proportion to the thickness of that which was subject to their examination ”

“ Every day bones and pieces of bones were found between six and seven feet deep, but none of the most important ones. But the greatest obstacle to the search was occasioned by the shell marle which formed the lower stratum; this, rendered thin by the springs at the bottom, and by the weight of the whole morass, always pressed upwards on the workmen to a certain height; which, without an incalculable expence, it was impossible to prevent. ”

“ The whole of this part of the country abounding with morasses, it is the custom of the farmers to assist each other in turns with personal or specific labour, each man giving a route or frolick on the occasion, in order to obtain a large quantity of their contents for manure. ”

“ It is a fact that all over the country, the stones, which in a curious manner are strewed over the ground, from the largest to the smallest, have been worn round by long-continued friction, as if by the agitation of water ”

“ Galatian, the next place we directed our attention to was a morass, eleven miles distant from the former, belonging to a Captain Joseph Barber, where, eight years before, four ribs had been found in digging a pit. From the description which was given of their position, and the appearance of the morass, which was a small one, we began our operations with all the vigour a certainty of success could inspire. ”

“ In the neighbourhood of these morasses are found an infinite number of petrifactions, a few specimens of which I have brought with me: they are in strange and unknown figures, and appear to be generally marine productions, as various species of coral and sea-urchins were likewise found among them. Two revolutions in nature must have contributed to this effect ”

“ In this manner the two skeletons were formed, and are in both instances composed of the appropriate bones of the animal, or exact imitations from the real bones in the same animal, or from those of the same proportion in the other: Nothing is imaginary, and what we do not unquestionably know, we leave deficient ”