The Mastodon
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      At what age in the world's history the mastodon lived, how and when he died, there is no well-developed theory.
     Is the death and utter annihilation of the race attributable to an overwhelming flood which submerged the earth and swept down those animals as they peacefully and unsuspiciously wandered?
     Was it some unusual storm, black with fury, terrible as a tornado, and death-dealing as a sirocco, which swept the wide borders of the Shawangunk, and in one wrathful, destroying stream swept the living mastodon into utter oblivion?
     Was it the common fate of nations, the destiny of every created race of animals, that by the physical law of their natures, the race started into being, grew up to physical perfection, fulfilled the purpose of their creation, and became extinct?
     Was it some malignant distemper, fatal as the murrain of Egypt and widespread as the earth itself, which attacked the herd and laid the giants low?  Or was it rather individual accident, numerous as the race, befalling each one, and which amidst the throes and toils of extrication, caused them to sink deeper and deeper still in the soft and miry beds where we find their bones reposing?
     When did these animals live and when did they perish, are questions no more easy of solution.  Were they pre-Adamites, and did they graze upon the meadows and slopes of Shawangunk in the sunlight of that early period, ere man had been created?  Or were they ante-diluvian, and carried to a common grave by the deluge of the Scriptures?  Or were they post-diluvian only, and, until a very recent period, wandered over these hills and browsed in these valleys?
      A formidable objection to these animals having lived within a few hundred years is the difficulty of so enormous a creature obtaining sustenance for himself through our winters.  It would seem that the mastodon lived in a paleontological period more remote, when the climate was warmer, since the allied huge animals do live in warmer latitudes. Perhaps it was the change of climate that destroyed the mastodon.
     Geologists are of opinion that the mastodon flourished about the middle of the tertiary period.  If so, these creatures were here ages before man was created.  The period of their extinction is thought to be more doubtful, probably just before the establishing of the first human pair in the Garden of Eden.
     The mastodon belongs to the graminivorous class of quadrupeds.  Had he belonged to the carnivorous race, subsisting on flesh, he would have been the most destructive butcher of which we could possibly conceive.
     “Otisville, Otisville “ shouts the trainman from a set of stentorian lungs, opening the door of the Erie Railway passenger coach as the train slows up at a little station high up the slope of the Shawangunk, at the eastern portal of the "Pass of the Mountains.'  We alighted the platform, and the train proceeded on its way through the deep cleft in the mountain, and the rumbling was lost in the distance as it crept along the dizzy heights of the western slope.
     “Will you please point the way to the swamp where the Mount Hope mastodon was found?” we said to the first man we net, who happened to be the village post-master.
“Certainly; come with me.  I am going that way and will show you the place.”
      Following his directions, after a walk of about a mile over a rough country road, we came to the place indicated.  The swamp has no distinguishing features, and covers a tract of some half-dozen acres.  The highway winds to one side of it, while a side-hill pasture borders the other.  The mastodon`s remains were found near the lower end, only a few feet from solid ground.  The creature had evidently ventured into the swamp in search of food, got mired in the peat and marl, and perished there-the skeleton being preserved from decay by the antiseptic properties of those substances that were instrumental in causing its death.
      There is an excavation some ten or more yards in diameter where the bones were exhumed, which is now filled with water. The circumstances under which the Mount Hope fossil was found are these:
     Some years ago a family by the name of  Mitchel, residing in New York City, purchased a farm in the vicinity of Otisville.  The land was none of the best; but with commendable enterprise they immediately set about improving the property.  Soon a large and commodious brick house was built; fences and outbuildings repaired; and the muck and marl from the swamp a few rods from the house were drawn out and spread upon the upland.
      The place for the excavation was chosen solely on the ground of convenience in getting the product to the upland; by a fortunate coincidence that was the place where the creature went into the swamp and perished.  One day while the men were at work they came upon a bone.  Its great size astonished them and they could not divine what sort of animal it had belonged to.  Soon after they came upon more bones, similar in form to the bones of animals with which they were familiar, only they were of mammoth size.  At last they came to the bones of the pelvis, which were of such huge dimensions that the whole neighborhood flocked to behold the curiosity.



                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
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