Page:Notice of the Remains of a Mastodon recently discovered in Michigan.pdf/2

224 It is generally supposed that the occurrence of elephantine remains in bogs indicates the mode of death of these ponderous quadrupeds. It may be doubted, however, whether their occurrence exclusively in peat, or beneath it, is not attributable to the properties of that substance.

The bog in which the present remains were found, is perfectly identical with thousands of others in our State, which are known, from observation, to be in process of formation in the sites of ancient, and at a rate which argues a comparatively short duration for the period of the State. Indeed, the watery and shaking condition of this bog, with the thinness of the peaty stratum, furnish data for the belief that it was the bed of a lakelet within a comparatively short period. It is much more credible that the Mastodon under consideration was living within 500 or 1000 years, than that an interval of time, greater than the age of the human race, has been occupied in the accumulation of two or three feet of vegetable deposits, under circumstances which suffer the same work to be accomplished, in neighboring localities, within the space of a human life-time. It is more than probable that the, according to his own traditions, and according to the evidences adduced by Dr. Koch, has listened to the thunder-waking tread of these monsters of the forest and the field.

Other mastodon remains have been found at various points within the, some of which are , ; the city of Adrian, Lenawee county; , ; , ; , ; and Terre Coupée,. (See Proc. Bos. Soc. Nat. Hist., v, 133, 146, 158.) The localities of several other discoveries have been lost. The molar teeth of  are also of occasional occurrence, in the same situations; as well as the antlers of the deer and American elk. Some years ago, the caudal vertebra of a was identified by Dr. Sager from the western portion of the State.

The remains of the Mastodon noticed above will probably be secured for the Museum of the University, when an occasion may be furnished for a fuller account of the fossil mammals of Michigan. University of Michigan, June 16, 1864.