Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 54, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 March 1920 — EVEN JEFFERSON COULD ERR [ARTICLE]

EVEN JEFFERSON COULD ERR

Great Statesman on Record as Having Pulled “Boner** In Matter of Natural History. It is related that when Thomaa Jefferson journeyed from Monticello t 0 Philadelphia, on his way to take the oath of office as vice-president, carried a lot of bones in his baggage. The bones, alleged to be. those of a mammoth, had been found in Greenbrier county, Va., and sent to Monticello, where they were set up by ferson, who, it appears, entertained a somewhat exaggerated notion of his attainments in natural history, and who stood sponsor for the bones as those of “a carnivorous-clawed animal entirely unknown to science.” It was not until after Jefferson reached Philadelphia that he was undeceived, for at a glance the learned Dr. Wistar saw that they were the bones of the common sloth, several specimens of which he showed the Virginian. It has been pointed out that, indirectly, no less a naturalist than the great Buffon may have been responsible for Jefferson’s error. It was the Virginian's practice "to send Buffon specimens and information, and with the subtle flattery of a courtier the French naturalist wrote: “I should have consulted you, sir, before publishing my natural history, and then I should have been sure of the facts.”