The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 8 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and PrivateJefferson, Thomas
History
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 8 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private
Jefferson, Thomas
United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783; United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1865
Our quadrupeds have been mostly described by Linnæus and
Mons. de Buffon. Of these the mammoth, or big buffalo, as
called by the Indians, must certainly have been the largest.
Their tradition is, that he was carnivorous, and still exists in the
northern parts of America. A delegation of warriors from the
Delaware tribe having visited the Governor of Virginia, during
the revolution, on matters of business, after these had been discussed
and settled in council, the Governor asked them some
questions relative to their country, and among others, what they
knew or had heard of the animal whose bones were found at the
Saltlicks on the Ohio. Their chief speaker immediately put
himself into an attitude of oratory, and with a pomp suited to
what he conceived the elevation of his subject, informed him
that it was a tradition handed down from their fathers, "That
in ancient times a herd of these tremendous animals came to the
Big-bone licks, and began an universal destruction of the bear,
deer, elks, buffaloes, and other animals which had been created
for the use of the Indians; that the Great Man above, looking
down and seeing this, was so enraged that he seized his lightning,
descended on the earth, seated himself on a neighboring
mountain, on a rock of which his seat and the print of his feet
are still to be seen, and hurled his bolts among them till the
whole were slaughtered, except the big bull, who presenting his
forehead to the shafts, shook them off as they fell; but missing
one at length, it wounded him in the side; whereon, springing
round, he bounded over the Ohio, over the Wabash, the Illinois,
and finally over the great lakes, where he is living at this day."
It is well known, that on the Ohio, and in many parts of America
further north, tusks, grinders, and skeletons of unparalleled magnitude,
are found in great numbers, some lying on the surface of
the earth, and some a little below it. A Mr. Stanley, taken
prisoner near the mouth of the Tennessee, relates, that after being
transferred through several tribes, from one to another, he was
at length carried over the mountains west of the Missouri to a
river which runs westwardly; that these bones abounded there,
and that the natives described to him the animal to which they
belonged as still existing in the northern parts of their country;
from which description he judged it to be an elephant. Bones
of the same kind have been lately found, some feet below the
surface of the earth, in salines opened on the North Holston, a
branch of the Tennessee, about the latitude of 36½° north. From
the accounts published in Europe, I suppose it to be decided
that these are of the same kind with those found in Siberia.
Instances are mentioned of like animal remains found in the
more southern climates of both hemispheres; but they are either
so loosely mentioned as to leave a doubt of the fact, so inaccurately
described as not to authorize the classing them with the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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