THE GRAVEYARD OF THE MAMMOTHS
There are many places within the present bounds of Kentucky where animals used to go to lick the ground, in order to secure the salt therein, and these places were therefore called "licks." The most noted of these is in Boone County, and is called Big Bone Lick from the many gigantic bones that have been found there.
In 1773, while leading a surveying party, a man by the name of James Douglas, of Virginia, camped for several days at this point. There he found a surface of ten acres entirely without trees or vegetable life of any kind, while scattered around were many bones both of the mastodon and the arctic elephant. The size of these gigantic, prehistoric animals may be conjectured from the descriptions given of the remains.
Tusks were found from seven to eleven feet long, the latter being at the larger end six or seven inches in diameter. Thigh bones, five feet in length; teeth weighing ten pounds with crowns seven by five inches; skulls, thought to be of young animals, measuring two feet between the eyes; ribs from three to four inches broad and so long that James Douglas and his party used them for tent poles, are some of the wonders that have given the name to this historic place. Scientists have decided from these remains that these ponderous animals belonged to the elephant family. Though possessing remarkable strength, they were so unwieldy that prehistoric man encountered little danger in combating them. It is the supposition that the early inhabitants who occupied this continent when these marvelous animals roamed the woods, must have planned to exterminate them on their periodic visits to the lick. By what means this was accomplished we can only conjecture, but that there was a wholesale slaughter is evident, for at no other place have so many mammoth remains been found.
THE DRUID OF KENTUCKY
Daniel Boone was born in the almost unbroken forests of Pennsylvania, on February 11, 1735. Without his energy, caution, and daring, Kentucky would not have been settled so soon. In both his native state and in North Carolina, he received in his boyhood the training that was to fit him for the great work that was to be his.
Truly "coming events cast their shadows before," for when barely large enough to shoulder the old family flintlock he found unbounded delight in roaming the woods and returning laden with his spoils, which at one time was the skin of an immense panther that he shot just as it was about to spring upon him.
"They found Boone in camp."
While yet in his early teens he gave his family great alarm by being absent for two days and nights. A rescuing party was sent out, and they soon saw smoke rising in the distance; proceeding, they found Boone in camp, his floor carpeted with the skins of animals he had slain, while the delicious odor of roasted meat filled the air.