Chapter 2

INDIAN TRADITION.

“Ten thousand moons ago, when nought but gloomy forests covered this land of the sleeping sun; long before the pale men, with thunder and fire at their command, rushed on the wings of the wind to ruin this garden of nature; when nought but the untamed wanderers of the woods, and men as unrestrained as they, were the lords of the soil; a race of animals existed,huge as the frowning precipice, cruel as the bloody panther, swift as the descending eagle, and terrible as the angel of night. The pinescrashedbeneath their feet, and the lakeshrunkwhen they slaked their thirst; the forceful javelin in vain was hurled, and the barbed arrow fell harmless from their side. Forests were laid waste at a meal; the groans of expiring animals were every where heard; and whole villages, inhabited by men, were destroyed in a moment. The cry of universal distress extended even to the region of peace in the west; and the good Spirit interposed to save the unhappy. The forked lightning gleamed around, and loudest thunder rocked the globe! The bolts of heaven were hurled upon the cruel destroyers alone, and the mountains echoed with the bellowings of death. All were killed except one male, the fiercest of the race, and him even the artillery of the skies assailed in vain. He ascended the bluest summit which shades the source of the Monangahela, and, roaring aloud, bid defiance to every vengeance. The red lightning scorched the lofty firs, and rived the knotty oaks, but only glanced upon the enraged monster. At length, maddened with fury, he leaped over the waves of the west at a bound, and this moment reigns the uncontrouled monarch of the wilderness, in despite of even Omnipotence itself.”

The idea of a carnivorous animal, which the Indians appear to have had of it, corresponds with the teeth of this; and the name Bull, which they give to it, might have been derived from the hornlike appearance of the tusks; but it is perhaps still more probable, that in the course of time the ideas of two distinct animals are confounded; for I have brought with me a plaister cast from a bone presented last June to the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, by Major Brown, of Kentucky: it is unquestionably a fragment of an animal of the ox kind, but of a most stupendous magnitude. It consists of a large portion of one side of the back part of the head, and part of the other; and the internal substance or pith, which was covered by the horn, twenty-one inches in circumference, and with the horn on it, must have been at least twenty-four or twenty-five. This bone was found, in a creek which empties into the Ohio, some years ago, and by the proprietors supposed to have been part of the Mammoth. It is impregnated with ferruginous earth, and in high preservation; and must have been broken with violence, but no one knows of any other portion of it.

Various bones, generally pieces of the head of the oxen kind, have been found in all parts of Europe and in Asia, having the same character which distinguishes the one from which this cast was made, in the form and direction of the horn; it descends backwards, and then rising, points forwards. There are several specimens of these in the British Museum, but none so large as this.

A few years since some large bones, of an uncommon kind, were found in a cave in Virginia, highly preserved by lying in earth abounding with nitre. They were sent to the Philosophical Society, and an account of them published in the fourth volume of their Transactions: By permission of the Society, I have made accurate casts of them.

Hence it appears that four animals of enormous magnitude have formerly existed in America, perhaps at the same time, and of natures very opposite:1st, The Mammoth, carnivorous;2d, An animal whose graminivorous teeth, larger than, and different from, those of the elephant, are sometimes found;3d, The great Indian bull; and,4th, An animal probably of the sloth kind, as appears on comparison with the bones found in Virginia, and a skeleton found in South America, and preserved in the Museum at Madrid.

Mr. Jefferson, on the Mammoth bones, says, “To whatever animal we ascribe these remains, it is certain such a one has existed in America, and that it has been the largest of all terrestrial beings. It should have sufficed to have rescued the earth it inhabited and the atmosphere it breathed, from the imputation of impotence in the conception and nourishment of animal life on a large scale; to have stifled in its birth, the opinion of a writer[4], the most learned too of all others in the science of animal history, that, in the new world, ‘La nature vivante est beaucoup moins agissante, beaucoup moins forte:’ That nature is less active, less energetic on one side of the globe than she is on the other.”

4.Buffon.

It was my intention to have closed this account with Dr. Dunter’s essay, whose accuracy in the examination, and knowledge in the discrimination of those few bones which were within his reach, had already given to his opinion the weight of unquestionable authority; but as his paper was somewhat long, and as the facts since he wrote are more numerous, and subject in the skeleton which we have, to the examination of every one; I shall only introduce his concluding sentence, that, “If this animal was indeed carnivorous, which I believe cannot be doubted, though we may as philosophers regret it, as men we cannot but thank Heaven that its whole generation is probably extinct.”

DIMENSIONS OF THE SKELETON.

FINIS.

Lawrence, Printer,No. 378, Strand.

Lawrence, Printer,

No. 378, Strand.

Transcriber’s note:

Page 16, ‘thursting’ changed to ‘thrusting,’ “in thrusting his spade deeper”

Pages 24-25, all instances of ‘intire’ changed to ‘entire.’

Page 36, ‘beach’ changed to ‘beech,’ “and now with beech.”

Page 44, ‘les’ changed to ‘less,’ “active, less energetic on one”

Back to Index Next