swamp, discovered and sent to me the tooth of a mastodon, with the request that I should go down and visit the place, as there were indications of the bones and teeth of the animal still remaining in the sands which underlie the peat-bed. Accordingly, with a small party of gentlemen, we visited the doctor, and succeeded not only in obtaining several other teeth and bones of this animal, but nearly one entire tusk, and immediately alongside of the tusk discovered the fragment of pottery which I hold in my hand, and which is similar to that manufactured at the present time by the American Indians.”[21] It would not be wise to found hasty theories on such strange juxtaposition of relics, possibly of very widely separated periods. The Ashley River has channeled for itself a course through the eocene and post-pleiocene formations of South Carolina, and where these are exposed on its shores the fossils are washed from their beds, and become mingled with the remains of recent indigenous and domestic animals, and objects of human art. But the discovery of Dr. Klipstein was made in excavating an undisturbed and, geologically speaking, a comparatively recent formation. The tusk of the mastodon lay alongside of the fragment of pottery, in a deposit of the peat and sands of the post-pleiocene beds. Immediately underneath lie marine deposits, rich with varied groups of mollusca, corresponding to species now living on the sea-coast of Carolina, but also including two fossil species no longer to be met with there, though common in the Gulf of Mexico and the West Indian seas.