must have carried a proboscis like that of
the elephant. This, though wholly fleshy, has left traces of its
existence. Barton reports that, in 1762, out of five skeletons which
were seen by the natives, one skull still possessed what they described
as a "long nose" with the mouth under it. And Kalm, in speaking of a
skeleton, discovered by the Indians in what is now the State of
Illinois, says that the form of the trunk was still apparent, though
half decomposed. The preservation of these perishable tissues in this
case must doubtless be attributed to the salt with which the bog-earth
is saturated. Still more recently a skeleton was found in Virginia,
which contained a very interesting proof of the food of the animal: a
mass of twigs, grass, and leaves, in a half-bruised state, enclosed in a
sort of sac, lay within the cavity of the body, doubtless the contents
of the stomach. Some of the twigs could be identified as those of
existing species of trees and shrubs, among them a species of _rose_,
still common in the region.

All this is very strong evidence that the deposition of these remains
cannot have taken place in a _very_ remote era,--that, in fact, it must
have been since the general deluge recorded in the Word of God.

Hugh Miller has an interesting observation concerning the actual date of
geologic phenomena in North America, compared with that of their
counterparts in the Old World. He says, "The much greater remoteness of
the mastodontic period in Europe than in America is a circumstance
worthy of notice, as it is one of many facts that seem to indicate a
general transposition of at least the later geologic ages on the
opposite sides of the Atlantic. Groups of corresponding character on the
eastern and western shores of this great ocean were not contemporaneous
in time. It has been repeatedly remarked that the existing plants and
trees of the United States, with not a few of its fishes and reptiles,
bear in their forms and constructions the marks of a much greater
antiquity than those of Europe. The geologist who set himself to
discover similar types on the eastern side of the Atlantic, would have
to seek for them among the deposits of the later tertiaries. North
America seems to be still passing through its later tertiary ages; and
it appears to be a consequence of this curious transposition, that while
in Europe the mastodontic period is removed by two great geologic eras,
from the present time, it is remo