Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1900 — Mastodon Tooth Unearthed. [ARTICLE]

Mastodon Tooth Unearthed.

Last Friday, while J. C. Norman and sons William, Joseph and Frank, were fishing near Grooms bridge, they brought to the surface the tooth of a mastodon which had probably lain near there for hundreds of years. Will brought the tooth to town Tuesday artd it is now on exhibition in the window of Fendig’s drug store. The tooth is 4 inches wide and 6| inches long across the top and set into the jaw-bone about 5| inches, being 6| inches long altogether. Its weight now is 4f pounds. Evidently this was one of the front teeth of the animal from which it came, as it shows on the back where another and apparently much larger tooth set up against it, but the frontside has not this appearance. The tooth was in a fair state of preservation, and the top is almost as hard and glossy as though fresh from the jaw-bone of its owner.* The roots, however, are decayed considerably and the bone has rotted away somewhat. The animal carrying about such a set of molors must have been of huge proportions. A further search about the spot where the immense tooth was found failed to disclose any more of the bones.