Fig. 161.—Molar teeth of Mastodon, worn.
It was only towards the middle of the last century that the Mastodon first attracted attention in Europe. About the year 1705, it is true, some bones of this animal had been found at Albany, now the capital of New York, but the discovery attracted little attention. In 1739, a French officer, M. de Longueil, traversed the virgin forests bordering the great river Ohio, in order to reach the great river Mississippi, and the savages who escorted him accidentally discovered on the borders of a marsh various bones, some of which seemed to be those of unknown animals. In this turfy marsh, which the natives designated the Great Salt Lake, in consequence of the many streams charged with salt which lose themselves in it, herds of wild ruminants still seek its banks, attracted by the salt—for which they have a great fondness—such being the reason probably which had caused the accumulation, at this point, of the remains of so large a number of quadrupeds belonging to these remote ages in the history of the globe. M. de Longueil carried some of these bones with him, and, on his return to France, he presented them to Daubenton and Buffon; they consisted of a femur, one extremity of a tusk, and three molar teeth. Daubenton, after mature examination, declared the teeth to be those of a Hippopotamus; the tusk and the gigantic femur, according to his report, belonged to an Elephant; so that they were not even considered to be parts of one and the same animal. Buffon did not share this opinion, and he was not long in converting Daubenton, as well as other French naturalists, to his views. Buffon declared that the bones belonged to an Elephant, whose race had lived only in the primitive ages of the globe. It was then, only, that the fundamental notion of extinct species of animals, exclusively peculiar to ancient ages of the world, began to be entertained for the first time by naturalists—a notion which laid dormant during nearly a century, before it bore the admirable fruits which have since so enriched the natural sciences and philosophy.
Fig. 162.—Head of the Mastodon of the Miocene period.
A, B, the whole head; C, lower jaw.
Buffon gave the fossil the name of the Animal or Elephant of the Ohio, but he deceived himself as to its size, believing it to be from six to eight times the size of our existing Elephant; an estimate which he was led to make by an erroneous notion with regard to the number of the Elephant’s teeth. The Animal of the Ohio had only four molars, while Buffon imagined that it might have as many as sixteen, confounding the germs, or supplementary teeth, which exist in the young animal, with the permanent teeth of the adult individual. In reality, however, the Mastodon was not much larger than the existing species of African Elephant.
The discovery of this animal had produced a great impression in Europe. Becoming masters of Canada by the peace of 1763, the English sought eagerly for more of these precious remains. The geographer Croghan traversed anew the region of the Great Salt Lake, pointed out by De Longueil, and found there some bones of the same nature. In 1767 he forwarded many cases to London, addressing them to divers naturalists. Collinson, among others, the friend and correspondent of Franklin, who had his share in this consignment, took the opportunity of sending a molar tooth to Buffon.
