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.
Geordie and the Sick Dog.
AN ENGLISH STORY.
It was Saturday afternoon, and had been longed for all the week by little Geordie, as he was called, for he was a very little fellow. Geordie had built himself a boat, and had promised to give it a fine sail in a pond, not a great way from the house in which he lived, called the fen ditch.
So away he went, before he had quite eaten his dinner, with his boat in one hand, and the remains of a slice of bread and butter in the other; for his mother was a poor woman, and Geordie did not get meat every day, and never on a Saturday.
But his cheeks were rosy, and his eye was bright, and his ringlets laughed in the wind as he ran along, looking at his boat with eyes of delight all the way, and every now and then taking a huge mouthful, and then stopping for breath, for fear the dry crumbs should be blown down his chest.
There was a beautiful breeze, as he called it,—for he called everything beautiful that pleased him. He had a beautiful piece of bread and butter; and a beautiful knife; and a beautiful pair of shoes,—only his toes peeped through them.
He had a kind, cheerful, and tender heart, and so everything appeared beautiful to him, and few things had the power to make him discontented or peevish; but, just as Geordie got over the Warren hills, which led to the place of his destination, he saw Harry Dyke, the groom at the great house of Lady Clover, coming over the swale, as it was called, with several of the boys of the village dancing about him, apparently in great delight.