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History of Orange County
Mastodon
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Under date of Sept. 10, 1800, Dr. Graham of Shawangunk, (I believe you knew him) in a letter to Dr. Sam'l L. Mitchell of New York details the earliest facts concerning Mastodontoid remains in this county. The substance of that letter is, making Wardsbridge a centre, he speaks of them as being found in 1782, 3 miles S.; 1794, 5 miles W.; 1800, 10 miles N.E.; 1800, 1 mile E., and some others which are not particularized.
The earliest accounts we have of mastodontoid remains are by Longueil, a French officer who formed them on the banks of the Ohio in 1738. They were then called the bones of the “unknown animal.” In 1740 large quantities were taken from Big bone Lick in Kentucky to France, and received the name of “Animal of the Ohio.” Mr. Peale and other naturalists gave to the bones taken from this county by that gentleman the name of Mammoth. Baron Culver arranged and classified the genus, and named it from the characteristic tooth, “Mastodon,” or “Nipple tooth.”
Nine species have been admitted by naturalists; six of them were introduced by Culver.
1st, Mastodon Giganteum, and as Prest. Hitchcock, when making some public remarks last winter upon the one found on Mr. Brewster’s farm, added-—”Americanus.” This species is only found in the United States.
2nd, Mastodon Angustidens—found in the south of France, Germany, Tuscany, Switzerland, and South America.
3rd, Mastodon Cordillerarum—-found in Quito, and Chequitos.
4th, Mastodon Humboldtii—found at Conception.
5th, Mastodon Parvus—found in Europe.
6th, Mastodon Taperoides—found at Montabusard, near Orleans,
7th, Mastodon Avernensis—in department of Pay de dome, France. Indicated by M. M. Croizer and Jobert Sen.
8th, Mastodon Lotidens,
9th, Mastodon Elephantoides, Both indicated and described by M. Clift, and founded upon bones from the river Irawady between Rangoon and Ava.
Allusion has been made to another species:
10th, Mastodon Funcencis—found in Switzerland.
Dr. Hays in his memoirs, presents another and names it,
11th, Mastodon Borronii—found in Piedmont, and suspects two more.
12th, Mastodon Cuiveii.
14th, Mastodon Jeffersonii.
All the surmises concerning the new genus of Tetracaulodon has been set at rest by Dr. Owen.
I enclose an extract from R. J. Murchison’s address touching this point. Also a queer speculation taken from Am. Phi. Trans, vol. 4, page 510.
Letter from Gov. Dudley to the Rev. Cotton Mather, D. D.
Roxbury, 10 July, 1706.
Sir :—I was surprised a few days since with a present laid before me from Albany by two honest Dutchmen, inhabitants of that city, which was a certain tooth accompanied with some other pieces of bone, which being but fragments, without any points whereby they might be determined to what animals they did belong, I could make nothing of them; but the tooth was of the perfect form of the eye tooth of a man, with four prongs or roots and six distinct faces or flats on the tops a little worn, and all perfectly smoothed with grinding. I suppose all the surgeons in town have seen it, and I am perfectly of opinion it was a human tooth. I measured it, and as it stood upright it was six inches high lacking one-eighth, and round 13 inches, lacking one-eighth, and its weight in the scale was 2 pounds, 3 ounces Troy weight. One of the same growth, but not of equal weigh:, was last year presented to my lord Cornbury, and one of the same figure exactly was shown at Hartford of near a pound weight more than this.
Upon examination of the two Dutchmen they tell me the said tooth and bones were taken up under the bank of Hudson’s river, some miles below the city of Albany, about 50 leagues from the sea, about---feet below the surface of the earth, in a place where the freshet does not every year rake and waste the bank, and that there is a plain discoloration of the ground 75 feet at least, different from the earth in color and substance, which is judged by every body that see it to be the ruins and dust of the body that bore those teeth and bones.
I am perfectly of opinion that the tooth will agree only to a human body, for whom the flood only could prepare a funeral; and without doubt he waded as long as he could to keep his head above the clouds, but must at length be confounded with all other creatures, and the new sediment after the flood gave him the depth we now had.
I remember to have read somewhere a tradition of the Jewish Rabbins, that the issues of those unequal matches between heaven and earth at the beginning were such whose heads reached the clouds, who are, therefore, called Nephelim, and their issue were Geborim, who shrank away to the Raphaim, who were then found not to be invincible, but fell before less men—-the sons of the east in several places besides Canaan. I am not perfectly satisfied of what rank or class is this fellow was, but I am sure not of the last, for Goliah was not half so many feet as this fellow was ells long.
The distance from the sea takes away all pretension of its being a whale or animal of the sea, as well as the figure of the tooth; nor can it be any remains of the elephant—the shape of the tooth and admeasurement of the body in the ground will not allow that.
There is nothing left but to repair to those antique doctors for his origin, and to allow Dr. Burnet and Dr. Whiston to bury him at the Deluge, and if he were what he shows, he will be seen again at or after the conflagration further to be examined.
I am, sir, your humble servant,
J. DUDLEY.