numbers being now increased, and a spirit of inquiry being set on foot, excited a high degree of public interest. The big bones (as they were called) were exposed for show, and persons, from various motives, in great numbers, flocked to behold this heretofore hidden wonder. Having had an agency in prosecuting this inquiry, and of bringing the fossils to light, I wrote to Dr. Mitchill a short account of their magnitude, the place of their discovery, the nature of the earth, &c. &c. which that gentleman, with his learned co-editors of the Medical Repository, thought worthy of a place in that excellent register of discoveries and of science. By a reference to that document the magnitude of the particular parts of the skeleton will be found. It is, however, unnecessary to insert it here, as you have other sources of information, which will lead to a more accurate and general result.

The nature and formation of this mammoth country, as well as the particular places where those animals were found, may possibly be interesting; and to this object I shall devote a few general remarks.

The only fossils of this skeleton which have been discovered, have been found in wet and miry lands, in the towns of Montgomery and Shawangunk. The former in Orange, and the latter in Ulster county, in this state: distance about eighty miles from this city, and from six to twelve miles from Newburgh, on the Hudson river.

In a western direction from the Hudson river, for some five or six miles, the ground rises gradually, but perceptibly, until you come to the confines of Coldenham ; the waters running easterly until you arrive here, now take the contrary direction, and, turning westerly, are disembogued into a considerable stream, known by the name of Wallkill, and sometimes the Palts River. On the highlands at Coldenham you per ceive a range of high mountains, known by the name of "Shawangunk Mountains," from whence the waters run easterly, and falling into the Wallkill, are carried into the Hudson river, at the strand, near Kingston, in Ulster county, about one hundred and twelve miles distant from New-York.

These mountains on the west, and a ridge of highlands on the east, form a natural valley, of very considerable extent, varying in breadth from thirty-five in the southern, to the northern extremity of three miles, or thereabout. The formation and nature of this country has nothing to characterize it from other parts of our state in the middle district: the woods and forest trees, the grasses, and productions of every kind, are those which are indigenous to various parts of the state, and to all adjacent counties.

The general formation of this country is smooth, marked by some hills of secondary altitude, is susceptible of yielding every kind of produce cultivated in northern climates. The immense quantities of what is generally termed Goshen butter, is made in this

valley, and on the lands between it and the Hudson river, extending from New Cornwall, situate at the northern entrance into the Highlands, to the point of land called the Danse Keumer, in the town of Marlborough. In all this district of country the pasturage is luxuriant and excellent, and affords a greedy repast for black cattle, sheep, &c. Whether the high flavour of the butter made in this vicinity is owing to the peculiar qualities of the pasturage, or to the particular manner of making it, is a matter of doubt.

The growing of hemp at the southwestern part of Orange county, has, of late years, been a favourite and profitable pursuit with the proprietors of a large tract of land heretofore covered with an extensive sheet of stagnant water, known by the name of The Drowned Lands. This has, of late years, been partly drained by commissioners authorized by law to open aqueducts at the outlet into the Wallkill. Their enterprise has been reasonably successful, and the general opinion of the best informed men seems to be, that their labours will be ultimately crowned with success. In this event a tract of between twenty and thirty thousand acres of land will yield to the proprietors a rich reward for their agricultural labours.

It will be seen from this succinct account of the country, that whether the mammoth delighted in the fertile plain, in the low and sunken meadow, or swamp, or in the lofty and craggy mountains, or in all of them, the variety of the soil and formation of the country, afford a gratification to all his natural inclinations and propensities.

I do not, however, know that the marl discovered in abundance in Ulster and Orange counties, has been found in their neighbourhood; and it is proper to remark, that in these sunken receptacles of vegetable and testaceous solutions, have uniformly been found the bones of the mammoth. Perhaps it may be said, that in this marl, by its alkaline qualities, has the preservation of these fossils alone been preserved from dissolution and decay. The formation of these has evidently been the work of ages. In many places the body of this manure is thirty feet in depth, over which grass and vegetable plants, common to such grounds, grew in abundance, interspersed with trees of different kinds. In these places are uniformly found living springs, and abundance of snail and muscles, which, with vegetable substances, constitute the marl of different colours and (in some respects) qualities.

It may not be improper here to add a few remarks on the subject of this natural manure, which sooner or later cannot fail to be a source of wealth to the agriculturalist. The use of it has heretofore been superseded by the introduction of gypsum, on account of the cheapness of the latter; but interruptions of commerce have already very considerably enhanced the value of this article, and the distance of transportation of that dis

covered in the western parts of the state, must necessarily put it at a price much higher than usual to our farmers.

The marl here discovered is constituted principally of the solutions of small shells of the muscle and of the snail families; it is mixed with a proportionate quantity of vegetable substances, such as leaves, roots, &c. which find their way by the winds into the waters of these swampy, wet places: these sink to the bottom of the water, and the snails and muscles deposite their ova upon them, and the returning spring, by its genial warmth and natural process, brings them forth. They grow for the season, and in the autumn again deposite their ova upon the fragments of vegetables, which find their way into these watery habitations. I do not know what the theory of conchologist may be, as to the procreation of these shellfish, nor am I at all versed in this kind of natural history; but taking the facts as I have witnessed them, I feel authorized to give this as a theory resulting from actual and personal observation. If a better can be offered by others, I am contented; but, until then, I trust it may be insisted that this is a reasonable explanation of the formation of marl. By this theory it will be perceived that the quantities of marl are continually increasing, a fact of great importance to the inhabitants and owners of the soil. It may be proper to mention, also, that this marl lies in different places in the vicinity of the depositories of these bones, and that as yet, little use has been made of it as a manure; the high price of labour has hitherto prevented the farmer from having recourse to this source of wealth, while he could enrich his lands so much more readily and cheaply by the use of plaster of Paris, or gypsum, as before explained. Within a circle, the radius of which does not exceed six miles, there are several hundred acres of marl; a very small proportion of this has been explored or dug to the bottom, where the fossil bones have uniformly been discovered. By the force of their own weight, they have naturally sunk through the soft marl, and found rest many feet below, on solid or harder ground. And yet within the periphery of this circle, nine skeletons of these prodigious animals have been discovered! It may certainly be safely computed, that not one hundredth part has been explored to the bottom. If, then, so many have been found in so small a proportion of this mammoth ground; and admitting that there has been great good fortune in falling upon their place of rest, does it not afford a most reasonable hypothesis to say, that there are vast numbers of these natural curiosities deposited here for future discoveries, and that at some period our country (in this district) was fully inhabited by this stupendous animal.

My reflections on these subjects may appear chimerical and visionary; but a full knowledge of the facts I relate, careful and candid reflections, under all the circumstances accompanying these phenomena, have led me to a firm and unalterable opinion, that these

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animals were once common in this country; that in numbers, they equalled the other beasts of the forest; such as the bear, the wolf, the panther, &c. &c. In the proportion which larger animals bear to the smaller, in the order of nature. Should my opinion be reasonable, and founded in fact, it leads the mind to a variety of astonishing and curious results.

Why, in the dispensations of an overruling providence, should these animals once have been created, and existed in vast numbers, now be extinct? Or, at all events, expelled from any known region in our country? This becomes a question still more interesting if we suppose the animals to have been carnivorous. That they were so, as well as graminivorous, is pretty well authenticated, by the formation of their grinders. Perhaps, to say they were omnivorous, would not be hazarding too much. Indeed, my worthy and learned friend, Dr. James G. Graham, who examined the fossils, went still further; for the formation of the bones, near, and belonging to the foot, warranted him, as a professional man, in the belief that this animal had claws.

I am aware, that an opinion so singular as this, entertained by my learned friend, Dr. Graham, forms an anomaly in nature; but from a careful examination of the bones of the foot, the metatarsal bones (as they are termed in anatomy) were so constituted, that the Doctor drew his conclusions of their appertaining to a clanfooted race of beasts. Nor is this opinion more strange than their actual existence. For, whether they are of a genus of animals now unknown-whether of the elephantine family-of the Asiatic or Siberian species, the solution of their existence, upon any certain knowledge, is equally difficult and inexplicable.

From this narrative, you will be enabled to possess yourself of some information on an interesting subject, which could not be well or accurately obtained, except by viewing the topography of the country, and witnessing the taking out of the skeletons; this not being practicable for you in your various literary and official pursuits, I have thought a circumstantial narrative worthy of your enlightened consideration.

This subject has been a source of conversation and inquiry amongst men of information, and has led to different speculative opinions. My friend, the erudite Dr. Mitchill, appears to have struck upon a philosophical explanation, which is at once bold, and will explain the phenomena. By his reflections he places these curiosities amongst elephantine relics, occasioned by the change of the axis of the globe ninety degrees, at some very remote period. By this hypothesis may be explained the existence of these bones and bodies of animals, belonging to low and warm latitudes, being found in the cold and frozen climates of the earth. That gentleman supposes the ancient equator to have extended, in the northern hemisphere, from the bay of Bengal, near where the mouths of the Ganges

are through Thibet, Tartary, and Siberia, to the present North Pole, and thence along in North America through the tracts west of Hudson's Bay and Lake Superior, to the sources of the Mississippi, and thence down to the Gulf of Mexico, near its places of disemboguement, and so onward across New Spain to the South Sea. That such was probably the old equatorial line.

In corroboration of this gentleman's opinion, he truly alleges, that under the ancient equator have been found the remains of animals peculiar to warm climates; the bones of the elephant and the rhinoceros are discovered almost all the way where he would desig nate the ancient equator; that in colder latitudes the frozen bodies themselves on the banks of the Genessee and the Lena, and in masses of ice lying upon the shores of the Asiatic continent, and thereabouts, have attracted the attention of the naturalist; that in America, the valley of the Mississippi was the place of the former equator, in which direction the fossil skeletons are most frequent, and that the creatures to whom they belong, may be supposed to have perished at the grand catastrophe in their proper and natural climates; that the migration of the human race, and the passage of animals from Asia to America, find a solution by this theory, of easy and rational comprehension.

Dr. Mitchill descants largely and philosophically upon the causes of this change; but as these remarks would be too voluminous to insert here, I shall forbear to enlarge further on a subject involving so many considerations necessary in the examination of the causes and effects producing such vast geological phenomena.

This hypothesis of Dr. Mitchill will easily and readily explain the phenomena of these, as well as of others found in our northern and some southern regions. And if we can admit that these skeletons are nothing more than elephantine relics, of a well known, or even an unknown species, the difficulties now presenting themselves disappear. For my own part, I have reasoned myself into a different opinion; but, after all, the fact must remain encompassed with so many doubts and difficulties, as to perplex the learned and curious. It is important also to add, that with the discoveries of these skeletons, have been found considerable locks and tufts of hair: having been buried a great length of time in a calcarious substance, it retained its natural appearance, and was brought to light in a tolerable state of perfection; the length was from one and a half to two inches and a half, of a dunnish brown colour. In one instance, the hair was much longer, measuring from four to seven inches in length, of the same colour, and resembling, in appearance, the shorter, and was conjectured to have been the mane of the mammoth. Whether a discoloration had not taken place, from its native appearance, must remain a matter of conjecture. In every instance, an exposure to air caused it to moulder away into a kind of impalpable dust. This fact would seem to render it certain, that the animal, the relics of whose body