5137. MASTODON, Bones of.—
Of the
bones you sent me, I reserved a very few for
myself. I got Dr. Wistar to select from the
rest every piece which could be interesting to
the Philosophical Society [of Philadelphia],
and sent the residue to the National Institute
of France. These have enabled them to decide
that the animal was neither a mammoth
nor an elephant, but of a distinct kind, to which
they have given the name of Mastodont, from
the protuberance of its teeth. These, from
their forms, and the immense mass of their
jaws, satisfy me this animal must have been
arboriverous. Nature seems not to have provided
other food sufficient for him, and the
limb of a tree would be no more to him than a
bough of a cotton tree to a horse.—
To General William Clarke. Washington ed. v, 467.
(M.
1809)
See Paleontology.
