From the New York Columbian.
Discovery of another Mammoth, communicated by one of the discoverers-
The learned world will rejoice to hear, that the bones of another of these huge animals were disinterred at the village of Chester, five miles east of Goshen, Orange County, on Tuesday and Thursday the 27th and 29th May last. The discovery was made by and in the presence of Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell, Messrs. William, Peter and Isaac Townsend, Mr. John Yelverton, P. S. Townsend, M. D. Townsend Seely, M. D. Mr. Miller, Wharrey and Silvanus Miller, Esquire. The fact which led to the search originated from a conversation between the above, mentioned gentlemen at the house of the hon. Anthony Davis, in this village, Monday evening, May 26. I was mentioned in the course of this conversation, that a large bone had been dug up here in a bog meadow, about 12 years since, which at that time excited a good deal of remark among the neighbors. Mr. Yelvertoo [Yelverton], brother of the owner of the bog meadow, recollected the occurrence distinctly, and on the following morning, pointed out the particular spot. He felt satisfied himself that a number more lay undisturbed in the soil. After exploring along the ditch of the meadow for a few yards, we struck upon something of the sound and feel of bone - and on removing out the mud and water, laid bare the massive relicks themselves. The bones were carefully removed, and brought to this city on Saturday last by Messrs. Mitchell and Townsend; and are now deposited in the apartments of the Lyceum under whose sanction these gentlemen were travelling at the time of this important discovery.
The following extract from the Report of their meeting of Monday, June 2d, 1817, will more fully illustrate what has been here premised:
“It was the good fortune of the Commissioner's to find another skeleton of that huge creature, the Elephas Mastadon, who though apparently extinct, was formerly an inhabitant of New York. This happened on the 27th and 29th of May, upon the farm of Mr. Yelverton, near Chester, a village in the town of Goshen. The soil is a black peat or turf, sufficiently inflammable to be employed for fuel. Its surface is overgrown with grass, forming a luxuriant meadow for grazing. The herbage & the bottom in which it grow, have a near resemblance to the turf meadow of Newton, in Queens County, Long Island. The sward and turf covering the skeleton are about four feet deep. Beneath these is a stratum of course vegetable, stems and films resembling chopped straw or drift stuff along the sea shore, about a foot and a half thick; and under this is a stratum of fine bluish and soft clay. Specimens of these are brought away and are herewith presented. The bones raised were parts of a lower jaw with its teeth, of a scapula of a humerus, of an ulna and radius, of the bones of the feet, of ribs, and of vertebrae. The upper maxillary bone was found with its grinders and tusks in their natural situation. Dr. Townsend and Dr. Seely, who had from the beginning aided with their own hands the acquisition of these remains, now laboured with the greatest assiduity in the pit to uncover completely and elevate connectedly these important parts of the animal.
The unparalled association of bones teeth and ivory prongs, were after much exertion denuded of their mud and developed to view. They lay upside down, or in other words, their natural position was inverted; as if the creature had died in a supine posture. The palate bones were perfectly in sight, with the huge molars on each side. From the point toward where the palate joins the upper auxiliary in other animals, two ivory tusks proceeded. These were not inserted in sockets; at least no such holes or sockets could be found, but they seemed to be formed by gradual change of bone to ivory, or of osseous to eburneous matter. In this respect the conversion resembled the jaw and tooth of the iaurian reptile of Nevesink, already in the cabinet of the professor of Natural History; in which organization the jaw is converted gradually to tooth. Their direction was forward, with a bold curvature outward and upward. Between the tusks could be seen and felt the usual processes to which the proboscis had formerly been attached. They were short and ungulate. On attempting to loosen the left tusk from its clayey bed, it broke across, though touched in the most delicate manner. Though approached with the gentlest, touch, it flaked off in considerable portions, and cracked through in other places. - Finding it wholly impossible to preserve its entirety, recourse was had to measuring the relicks, as they lay, and of making drawings from them as accurately as possible. As the fragments of the tusk were handled Dr. Mitchell measured them by a rule, and found their amount reckoning within bounds, to be eight feet and nine inches; or take into calculation the space of connexion with the jaw as being three inches, or perhaps more the length of the tusk was nine feet or upwards of solid ivory.* The circumference at the base was two feet and two inches, making a diameter of eight inches and two thirds. The taper was easy, gradual and smooth, like the tusks of other elephants. Dr. Townsend made a sketch of the parts in situ before they were removed; by which it will be seen how the grinders are situated in relation to the tusk, and how tusks are to be considered as holding a middle place in their anatomical structure and use, between teeth and horns. The various parts of the animal which were disinterred, and the drawings and illustrations are here-with submitted to the society.
"Although the fragile and friable nature of these bones might render it impossible ever to connect them into a complete skeleton; the commissioners state it as a matter of the highest probability, that, at the aforesaid place, the remainder of a mammoth as huge perhaps as ever walked the earth, reposes in the swamp, not more than fifty four miles from the site of this institution. He has already heard the resuscitating voice of the Lyceum!
* The tusks, through solid, are changed in their nature, Professor Mac Neven, honorary member of the Lyceum, mentioned in the society, that he had found their substance to be converted into carbonate of lime.
