A Memoir on the Discovery of Certain Bones of a Quadruped of the Clawed Kind in the Western Parts of...

A Memoir on the Discovery of Certain Bones of a Quadruped of the Clawed Kind in theWestern Parts of VirginiaAuthor(s): Thomas JeffersonSource: Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 4 (1799), pp. 246-260Published by: American Philosophical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1005103 .

Accessed: 13/05/2014 16:42

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

American Philosophical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toTransactions of the American Philosophical Society.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 194.29.185.170 on Tue, 13 May 2014 16:42:41 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=amps

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1005103?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


246 MsODE oiz 1DRYIN"G MARSHES.

is an indifpenfable neceffiary of life.-This I grant; yet I thiink that the felling of the woods may be fo regulated as to render economy and utility perfeafly compatable, vJiz. in the following manner.

Let it be fuppofed that the N. W. and S. E. are thle affecle or prevailing winds of North America; let the furveyor ,eneral mark out a traa of fay I00 or 200 nmiles in a right line to be cleared of trees; then every blaft from thefe two oppofite points will vcntilate zoo miles of country, bearinig along the fumes of all the marfhes, while the great v/Io or avenue Ikirted with wood at both fides would furniflh the moft falubrious and confequently valuable fituation for fettlers.

No. XXX.

A Memoir on the D_co e;y of certatin Bone of a . jadru- jed of the Clawel Kind tn the Weftern Parts oj Virginha. ByTiioMAS JEFFERSON, Efq.

Rcad March N a letter of July 3d, I informed our late moft '0, I797 1 worthy prefident that fome bones of a very large animal of the clawed kind had been recently dif.. covered within this ftate, and promifed a communica. tion oni the fibjeed as foon as we could recover what verere flill recoverable of them. It is well known that the fubftratum of the country beyond the Blue Ridge is a limeftone, abounding with large caverns, the-earthy floors of which are. highly impregnated with nitre; and that the inhabitants are in the habit of extraaing the nitre from tlhem. In digging the floor of one of thefe caves, belonging to Frederic Cromer in the county of Greenbriar, the labourers at the depth of two or three feet, came to fome bones, the fize and form of which

befpoke



ON CERTAIN BONES, Lc. 247 befpoke an animal unknown to them. The nitrous im- pregnaticn of the earth together with a fmall degree of petrifcation had probably been the means of their pre- fervation. The importance of the difcovery was not knowni to thofe who made it, yet it excited converfation in the neighbourhood, and led perfons of vague curiofity to feek and take away the bones. It was fortunate for fcience that one of its zealous and well informed friendss, Colonel John Stewart of that neighbourhood, heard of the difcovery, and, fenfiblie from their defcriptton, that they weere Gt an animal not known, took meafures with- out delay for faving tlhofe which fIill remained. He was kind enough to inform me of the incident, and to f or- ward me the bones from time to time as they were re- covered. To thefe I was enabled accidentally to add fome others by the kindnefs of a Mr. Flopkins of New-York, wlho had vifited the cave. Thefe bones are,

ift. A fmall fragment of the femur or tlhigh bone; being in faa only its lower extremity, feparated from the nmain bone at its epiphyfis, to as to give us only the two condyles, but thefe are nearly entire.

2d. A radius, perfe&. 3d. An ulna, or fore-arm, perfe&, except that it is

broken in two. 4ih. Three claws, and half a dozen other bones of the

foot; but whether of a fore or hinder foot, is not evident. About a foot in length of the refidue of the femur was

found, it was fplit through the middle, and in that ftate was ufed as a fupport for one of the falt petre vats, this piece was afterwards loft, but its meafures had been firfI taken as will be ftated hereafter.

Thefe bones only enable us to clafs the animal with the unquiculated quadrupeds; and of thefe the lion being neareft to him in fize, we will compare him with that animal, of whofe anatomy Monfieur Daubenton has fur-

i 2 nifhed



243 ON TIHE DISCOVERY or

i)ifhed very accurate meafures in his tables at the end of 13uffon's Natural Hiftory of the lioni. Thefe meafures were taken as lhe* infornis uis from "1 a large lion of Africa," in which quarter the largea t are faid to be pro- duced. I fhall feleCt from his meafures only thofe where we have the correfponding bones, converting them into our own inch and its fraaions, that the coinparifon may be inore obviouLs: and to avoid the embarraffment of de. fignating our animal always by circumlocution and defcription, I will venture to refer to hlim by the name of the Great-Claw or Mera,oniyx, to wlhich he feems fut- ficiently entitled by the diflinguiflied fize of that nueniber.

Megaloniyx. Lion. Inches Inches.

Length of the ulna, or fore-arm 20.K 1. 3.7 Height of the olecranumn - 3.5 z.85 Breadth of the ulna, from the point o

the coronoide apophyfis. to the extre 9.55 mity of the olecranum - J

13readth of the ulna at its micdle 3-8 Thicknefs at the fame place - 1.14 CircuLmference at tie fame place 6.7 Length of the radius - 1 775 12.37 Breadth of the radius at its head 2.6;5 .38 Circumference at its niddle 7.4 3.62 Breadth at its lower extremity 4..05 1.18 Diameter of the lower extremity of the)

femur at the bafe of the two con-. 4-2 2.65 dyles - - J

TranfNerfe diameter of the larger con- dyle at its bafe 3.

Circumference of both condyles attbeiri bafe - 11i.65 *- Buffon, XVIII. 38. Paris edition in 31 vols. 12MO. - -De Mane:,1 !7,

Diameter



CERTAlIN BONES, &c. 249 Megalonyi. Lion.

Inches. Inches.

Diameter of the middle of the femur 4.2S I.I51 Hollow of the femur at the fame place 1. 25 Thlicknefs of the bone furrouniding the)

hollow - S 15 Length of the longeft claw - 7.5 .41 Length of the fecotud phalanx of the fame 3.2 I.41

The dimenfions of the largeRt of the foot bones are as follow,

Inches. Its greatePR diameter, or breadth at the joinlt " 45 Its frnallefl diamneter, or thicknefs at the fame place 2.28 Its circumference at the fame place 7.1 Its circumference at the middle _ 5.3

(Of long. Middle Shorteft eft toe. fized toe. toe.

d. Plhalanx. Its length 3.2 2.95 GreateR diameter at its head or

upper juint - 2 Smalleft diaineter at the fame)

place I S 4 I .s4

Circumference at the fame place 5.25 S.8 3d. Phalanx. Its length * 07 5 t5s9 3.5

GreatefR diameter at its head or upper joint 2.7 2. 1.45

SmalleRt diameter at the fame, place - - 3 9s 9 -5$

Circumference at the fame place 6.45 4.8

Were we to eftimate the fize of our animal by a coinparifon with that of the lion on the principle of expede fiercilem, by taking the longeRt claw of each as the mo-

* It is aatually 6+ inches long, but about i inch appear to have been broken off.

A Aaually 5.65 but about inch is broken off. dule



250 ON TH E DISCOVERY OF

(dtile of their niea(bUre, it would give us a lbeing out of the limits of natui-e. It is fortunate therefore tl-hat we liave fiobie of the larger bones of the limbs which may furniflh a more certain efcimate of his ifature. Let us flippcle then that his dimenfions of height, length and tlhicknefs, andi of the principal members compofing thefet, were of thle fame proportions with thofe of the lion. Lu the table of M. Daubenton an ulna of t,3.78 iniches belonged to a lion 42? inches high over the fhoulders: then an u1na of 20. I inches befpeaks a megalonyx of 5 feet 1.75 inches height, and as animals who have the fam:e proportions of heigrht, length, and thicknefs lhave their i)ulk or weights proportioned to the cubes* of any one of their dimenfions, the cube of 42.5 inches is to 262 lb. the height and weiglit of M. Daubenton's lion as the ctube of 6 1 . 75 inclhes to 803 lb. the height and weighit of the magalonyx; which would prove him a little more than three times the fize of the lion. I fuppofe that we thould be fafe in confidering, on the authority of M. Daubenton, his lion as a large one. But let it pafs as one only of the ordinary fize, and that the negalonyx whofe bones happen to have been found was alfo of the ordinary fize. It does t appear that there was diffecded for the academy of fciences at P'aris, a lion of 4 feet 9 3 inchies lheiglht. This individual would weigh 644 lb. and would be in his fpecies, what a man of eight feet lieight would be in ours. Such men have exifled. A mnegalonyx equally monflrous would be 7 feet high, and wouild weigh 2000 lb. but the ordinary race, and not the monflers of it, are the objea of our prefent enquiry.

I have ufed the height alone of this animal to deduce his bulk, on the fuppofition that he might have been formed in the proportions of the lion. But thefe were

* Buffon xxii. 121. f Buffon xviii. 15. not



CERTAIN BONES, &c. 2 5[

not his proportions, he was m2uch thicker than the lion iii proportion to his height, in hiis limbs certainly, and probably therefore in his body. The diameter ef his radius, at its tipper en(l, is near twice as great as thlat ot the lion, and, at its lower end, more tlhani thrice as great, wllich gives a mean proportion of 2- for I. The femur of the lion was lefs than i-4 intclh diameter. That of the inegalonyx is 44- inches, which is more than tlhree for o0Ae. Aknd as bodies of the famne length and fubifance have their weights proportioned to the fquares of their diameters, this excefs of caliber compounded with the height, wvould greatly aggravate the bulk of this animal. But when our fubjeat lhas already carried us beyond the limitS of nature hitherto known, it is fafeft to flop at the moft mod-erate conclufions, and not to follow appear- ances throuigh ail the conijedures they wouild furniih, but leave thefe to be corroborated or correSled by fiuture difcoveries. Let us only fay then, what we may fafely fay, that he was more than three times as large as the lion: that he flood as pre-eminently at the hea(d of the column of clawed animals as the mammoth flood at that of the elephant, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus: and that he may have been as formidable an antagonift to the namtnoth as the lion to the elephant.

A difficult queflion now prefents itfelf. Whlat is become of the great-claw ? Some light mnay be throwii on this by afking another queftion. Do the wild animiials of the firft magnitude in any inflance fix their dwellings in a thickly inhabited country ? fuch, I mean, as the elephant, the rhinoceros, the lion, the tyger ? as far as my reading and recolleafion ferve me, I think they do not: but I hazard the opinion doubtingly, becaufe it is not the refult of full eniquiry. Africa is chiefly inhiabited along the margin of its feas and rivers. The interior defart is the domain of the elephant, the rhinoceros, th.e

on i,



252 ON THiE DISCOVERY oF

lion, the tyger. Such individuals as have their haunts neareft the inhabited frontier, enter it occafionally, and commit depredations when preffed by huinger: but the mafs of their nation (if I may ufe the term) never ap- proaclh the- habitation of man, nor are within reach of it. When our anceflors arrived here, the Indian population, below the falls of the rivers, was about the twentieth part of what it now is. In this ftate of things, an ani.- mal refembling the lion feems to have been known evcn in the lower country. Moft of the accounts given by the earlier adventurers to this part of America make a lion one of the animnals of our foreds. Sir John Haw- kins * mentions this in 1 564. Thomas Harriot, a man of learning, and of diftinguifbed candor, wh1o refided in Virginia in i587 t does the fame, fo alfo does Bul- lock in hlis account of Virginia,+ written about i627, lhe fays he drew his information from Pierce, Willough- by, Claiborne, and others who had been here, and from his own father who had lived here twelve years. It does not appear whether the faac is ftated on their own view, or on information from the lndians, probably the latter. The progrefs of the new population would foon drive off the larger animals, and the largeft firfit. In the prefent interior of our continent there is furely fpace and range enough for elephants and lions, if in that clinate they could fubfiflt; and for mammoths and inegalonyxes who may fubfiil there. Our entire ignorance of the im.. menfe country to the Weft and North-Weft, and of its contents, does not authorife us to fay what it does not contain.

Moreover it is a faa well known, and always fuf- ceptible of verification, that on a rock on the bank of the

* Hakluyt, g41. edition of 1589. t Ibid. 757, and Smith's Hi&ory of Virginia, Io. $ Bullock, page K5a

I Kanhawal



CERTAIN BONES, &oC !53

Kanhawa, near its confluence with the Ohio, there are carvings of many animals of that country, and among thefe one which has always been confidered as a perfeft figure of a lion. And thefe are fo rudely done as to leave no room to fufpe&t a foreign hand. This could not have been of the fmaller and manelefs lion of Mexico and Peru, known alfo in Africa both in * ancient and 1 modern times, though denied by + M. de Buffon: becaufe like the greater African lion, he is a tropical ani. nal; and his want of a mane would not fatisfy the figure. This figure then muff have been taken from fome other prototype, and that prototype muff have refembled the lion fufficiently to fatisfy the figure, and was probably the animal the defcription of which by the Indians made Hawkins, Harriot, and others conclude there were lions here. May we not prefume that prototype to have beea the great-claw ?

Many traditions are in poffeffion of our upper inha. bitants, which themfelves have lheretofore confidered as fables, but which have regained credit fince the difcovery of thefe bones. There has always been a ftory current that the firif company of adventurers who went to feek an eftablifhment in the county kf Greenbriar, the night of their arrival were alarmed at their camp by the ter- rible roarings of fome animal unknown to them: that he went round and round their camp, that at times they faw his eyes like two balls of fire, that their horfes were fo agonifed with fear that they couched down on the earth, and their dogs crept in among them, not daring to bark. Their fires, it was thought, protetted them, and the next morning they abandoned the country. This was little more than 30 years ago.-In the year I765, George Wilfon and John Davies, having gone to hunt

* AriaRot. Animal, 9. 4. Pliny, 8. i6. t Kolbe. i B xffon, xviii. i8.

Kk on



-e54 ON THi DISCOVERY OF

on Chieat river, a b_ranch of the Monongalhela, heard otiqD night, at a diflance from their camp, a tremendous roar- ing, which became louder and louder as it approached, till they thiought it refembled thunder, arid even made the earth tremble under them. The anim-al prowled round their camp a caonfiderable titne, during which their dogs, though on all othler oceafions fierce, crept to their feet, could not be excited from their camp, nor even en- coturaged to bark, About day light they heard the fame P'otuid repeated from the knob of a mouintain about a mile off and within a minute it was anfwered by a fini- Ihr voice from a neighbouring knob. Colonel johu Stewart had this account from iWilfon in the year 1 769, who was afterwards Lieutenant Colonel of a 1ennfyl- vania regiment in the revolution-war; and fome years after from Davies, who is now living in Kentucky.

Thefe circumflances multiply the points of refem- blance between this animal and the lion. M. de la Harpe of the French Academiy, in his abridgment of the Gene- ral Hiftory of Voyages, fpeaking of the Moors, fays* "it is remarkable that when, during their huntings, they nmieet with lions, their horfes, though famous for fwift- nefs, are fiezed with fuch terror that they become motion- lefs, and their dogs equally frightened,, creep to the feet of their mafter, or of his horfe." Mr. Sparrman in his voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, chap. I }. fays, c we could plainly difcover by our animals when the lions, whether they roared or not, were obferving us at a fmall diftance. For in that cafe the hounds did not venture to bark, but crept quite clofe to the Hottentots; and our oxen and horfes fighed deeply, frequently hanging back, and pulling flowly with all their might at the ftrong flraps with which they were tied to the waggon. They

* Gmnt1emau's, and London Magazines, for i 7R3. alfo



CERTAIN H3ONES, &c.

alfo 1o'd themfelves down on the ground, and flood up alternately, as if they did not know what to do with themfelves, and even as if they were in the agonies of death." He adds that " whlen the lion roars, he puts his moutlh to the ground, fo that the found is equally d'iff'ufed to every quarter." M. de Buffon (xviii. 3I.) defcribes the roarinig of the lion as, by its echoes refembling thunder: and Sparrman c. 12. mentions that the eyes of the lion can be feen a confiderable diffance in the dark, and that the Hottentots watch for his eyes for their government. The phofphoric appearance of the eye in the dark feems common to all animals of the cat kind.

The terror excited by thefe animals is not confined to brutes alone. A perfon of the name of Draper had gone in the year 1770, to hunt on the Kanhawa. He had turned his horfe loofe with a bell on, and had not yet got out of hearing when his attention was recalled by the rapid ringing of the bell. SufpedEing that Indians might be attempting to take ofT his horfe, he immediately re. turned to him, but befote he arrived he was half eaten up. His dog fcenting the trace of a wild beaff, he fol- lowed him on it, and foon came in fight of an animal of fuch enormous fize, that though one of our moft daring hunters and beft markfmen, he withdrew inflantly, and as filently as poflible, checking and bringing off his dog. He could recolle&l no more of the animal than his terrific bulk, and that his gener-al outlines were thofe of the cat kind. He was familiar with our animal mifcalled the panther, with our wolves and wild beafts generally, and would not have miftaken nor fhrunk from them.

In fine, the bones exift: therefore the animal has ex- iflted. The movements of nature are in a never ending circle. The animal fpecies which has once been put into a train of motion, is ftill probably moving in that train. For if one link in nature's chain might be loft, another

K k 2 and



256 ON THE DISCOVERY or

and another might be loft, till this whole fyftem of things ihould evanifh by piece-meal; a conclufion not warran- ted by the local difappearance of one or two fpecies of animals, and oppofed by the thoufands and thoufands of inftances of the renovating power conftantly exercifed by nature for the reproduatioii of all her fubjeats, animal, vegetable, and mineral. If this animal then has once exifted, it is probable on this general view of the. nove- ments of nature that he frill exifis, and rendered flill more probable by the relations of honeft men applicable to hiim and to him alone. It wouild indeed be but con- formable to the ordinary economy of nature to conjec- ture that fhe had oppofed fufficient barriers to the too great multiplication of fo powerful a deftroyer. If lions and tygers multiplied as rabbits do, or eagles as pigeons, all other animal nature would have been long ago def- troyed, and themfelves would have ultimately extin- guiIhed after eating out their pafture. It is probable then that the great-claw has at all times been the rareft of animals. Hence fo little is known, and fo little re- mains of him. His exiflence however being at length difcovered, enquiry will be excited, and further information of him will probably be obtained.

The Cofmogony of MI. de Buffon fuppofes that the earth and all the other planets primary and fecondary, have been maffes of melted matter firuck off from the fun by the incidence of a comet on it: that thefe have been cooling by degrees, firft at the poles, and afterwards more and more towards their Equators: confequently that on our earth there has been a time when the temperature of the poles fuited the conflitution of the elephant, the rhinoceros, and hippopotamus: and in proportion as the remoter zones became fucceffively too cold, thefe animnals have retired more and more towards the Equatorial regions, till now that they are reduced to

thb



CERTAIN BONES, &c. 257

the torrid zone as the ultimate fRage of their exiftence. To fupport this theory, he * affumes the tufks of the mammioth to have been thofe of an elephant, fome of his teeth to lhave belonged to the hippopotamus, and his largeft grinders to an animal much greater than either, and to have been depofited on the Miffouri, the Ohio, the HLolftcn, when thofe latitudes were not yet too cold for the cenflitutions of thefe animals. Should the bones of our an;itna, -which may hereafter be found, differ only in fizt ircm thofe of- the lion, they may on this hypo- theCis be caimend for the lion, now alfo reduced to the torrid zone, and its vicinities, and may be confidered as an additional proof of this fyftem; and that there has been a time when our latitudes fuited the lion as well as the other animals of that temperament. This is not the llace to difcufs theories of the earth, nor to queftion the gratuitous allotmenit to different animals of teeth not dif- fering in any circumfiance. But let us for a momnent grant this with his former poftulata, and afk how they will confift with another theory of his " qu'il y a dans la combinaifon des elemens et des autres caufes phyfiques, quelque chofe de contraire a l'aggrandifement de la nature vivante dans ce nouveau mowde; qu'il y a des obfta- cles au developpement et peutetre a la formation des grands germnes t." He fays that the mnammoth was an elephant, yetl two or tbree times as large as t1;e elephants of Afia and Africa: that fome of his teeth were thofe of a hippopotamuis, yet of a hippopotamus ? fouir times as large as thofe of Africa: that the mammoth himfelf, for he ftill con-iders him as a diftinEt animnal,II 1 was of a fize fuperior to that of the largefR elephants. That he was the primary and greateft of all terreifrial

f Buffon, Epoq. 2. 233, 234. t Buffon, Xvi)i. 145. : 2. EpO 223.

? I. Epoq. 246. 2. Epoq. 232. 11 2. Epoq. 234, 235.

anr; imals.



O5.N THE DISCOVERY oF

animals." If the bones of tihe megalonyx be afcribed to the lion, they muft certainly have been of a lion of more than three times the voluime of the African. I delivered to M. de Buffon the fkeleton of otur palmated elk, called orignal or moofe, 7 feet hiigh over the fl-houlders, he is often confiderably higher. I cannot find that the Euro- pean elk is more than two thirds of that height: confequently not one third of the bulk of the American. He* acknowledges the palmated deer (daim) of >America to be larger and fironger than that of the Old World. He t confiders the round horned deer of thefe States and of Louifiana as the roe, and admits they are of three times his fize. Are we then from all this to draw a conclufion, the reverfe of that of M. de Buffon. That nature, has formed the larger animals of America, like its lakes, its rivers, and mountains, on a greater and prouder fcale than in the other hemifphere ? Not at all, we are to conclude that fhe has fornmed fome things large and fome things finall, on both fides of the earth for reafons which the has not enabled us to penetrate; and that we ought not to flhut our eyes upon one half of her fads, and build fyflems on the other half.

To return to our great-claw; I depofit his bones with the Philofophical Society, as well in evidence of their exiflence and of their dimenfions, as for their fafe-keep- ing; and I fhall think it my duty to do the fame by fuch others as I may be fortunate enough to obtain the reco- very of hereafter.

TH: JEFFERSON. Monticello, Feb. ioth, 1797.

* Buffon, xxix. 245. t Ibid. xii. 91. 92. xxix. 245. Vide Suppl. 20o.

P. S.



CERTAIN BONES, &c. 255

P. S. March i oIb 77. After the preceding conmtmnu- nication was ready to be delivered in to the Society, in a *periodical publication from London I mnet with an account and drawing of the fkeleton of an animnal dug up near the river La Plata in Paraguay, and nown mounted in the cabinet of Natural Hiilory of Madrid. The figure is not fo done as to be relied on, and the account is only an abftraa from that of Cuvier and Roume. This fkeleton is alfo of the clawed-kind, and having onlly fouir teeth on each fide above and below, all grinders, is in this account claffed in the family of unquliculated qua- druLpeds deflitute of cutting teeth, and receives the new denomination of megatheriurn, having nothing of our animal but the leg and foot bones, we have few points f6r a comparifon between them. They refemble in their flature, that being i 2 feet 9 inchies long, and 6 feet 42- inches high, and ours by computation 5 feet I.75 inches high: they are alike in the coloffal thicknefs o 4the thigh and leg bones alfo. They refemble too in having claws -- but thofe.of the figure appear very fmall, and the verbal defcription does not fatisfy us wlhether the claw- bone, or only its horny cover be large. Thhey agree too in the circumftance of the two bones of tlhe fore-arm being diftina and moveable on each other; which how.- ever is believed to be fo ufual as to form. no mark of dif- tind&ion. They differ in the following cireumftances, if our relations are to be trufted. The megatheriutn is not of the cat form, as are the lion, tyger, atnd panther, but iL faid to have ftriking relations in all parts of its body with the bradypus, dafypus, pangolin, &c. According to analogy thrn, it probably was not carnivorous, had not the phofphoric eye, nor leonine roar. But to folve fatisfadorily the queftion of identity, the difcovery Qf

* Monthly Magazie, Sep.- 1796. 4 fore-.



260 SOME ACCOUNT or

fore-teeth, or of a jaw bone flhewing it had, or had not, fuch teeth, muff be waited for, and hoped with patience. It may be better, in the mean time, to keep up the dif- ference of name.

No. XXXI.

A Let/erfrom Mr. JOHN HECKEWELDER to BENJA- MIN SMITH BARTON, M. D. containing an Accouwnt of an Animal called the Big Naked Bear.

DEAR SIR,

Read March HAVE now to communicate to you, what 10, 1797. came to mny knowledge refpeaing an animal, which the Mohican Indians called Ahamagachktiat Me- cehqua, and the Delawares (if I recolle&t right) Amang-. achktiat. The Big Naked Bear. Their reports run thus: That among all animals that had been formerly in this country, this was the moft ferocious. That it was much larger, than the largeft of the common bears, and remarkably long-bodied: all over, (except a fpot of hair on its back of a wlhite colour,) naked. That it attacked and devoured man and beaft, and that a man, or a common bear, only ferved for one meal to one of thefe animals. 'I hat with its teeth it could crack the ftrongeft bones. That it could not fee very well, but in difcover- ing its prey by fcent, it exceeded all other animals. That it purfued its prey with unremitting ravenoufnefs, and that there was no other way of efcaping, but by taking to a river, and either fwimming down the fame, or faving one's felf by means of a canoe. That its heart being remarkably fmall, it could feldom be killed wvith the ar- row. That the fureft way of deftroying him was to break his back-bone. That when a party went out to defiroy

this



Date post:	06-Jan-2017
Category:	Documents
Upload:	thomas-jefferson
View:	216 times
Download:	3 times

A Memoir on the Discovery of Certain Bones of a Quadruped of the Clawed Kind in the Western Parts of...

Documents