The Mammoth.
In several of the United States persons have frequently found the bones of a huge animal, called the Mammoth, or Mastodon. One skeleton, nearly complete, has been found, and set up in Peale’s Museum, in Philadelphia.
There is no such creature to be found now, on the earth, as a Mastodon—nor has there been, since the memory of man. It seems that it must have resembled an Elephant, but was twice as large.
In Siberia, a few years ago, a fisherman discovered the body of a Mastodon, imbedded in the ice: the skin was nearly entire, and it was covered with woolly hair. After about two years, this body thawed out, and fell to the ground from the elevated place in which it was first discovered. The flesh, as well as skin, gradually disappeared, but the bones were secured, and being taken to St. Petersburgh, in Russia, were set up in a museum, where they are still to be seen.
The remains of many other animals, now extinct, are found in different countries, as well as traces of vegetables, such as are not met with now on the face of the earth. This is a very interesting subject, and I propose hereafter to say more about it.