Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 August 1920 — UNEARTH HEAD OF MASTODON [ARTICLE]

UNEARTH HEAD OF MASTODON

In Oliver Ditch Near Newland —ls Finely Preserved Specimen. The skull and entire upper Jaw, with the exception of most of the teeth, of a mastodon, was unearthed by the dredge at work on the Oliver ditch about a half mile directly north of Newland, in Barkley township, last Friday. The head is in a remarkably good state of preservation and two of the smaller front I teeth are still fast in the Jawbone. ! It is about three feet or more in length and runs down to nose or mouth, showing where the tusks were joined on. In fact, a little of each tußk is jjtlll attached to the head. . I The writer drove to Newland Sun- ■ day and saw 'the find, and it is well worth seeing. It is almost as large as a flour barrel and probably weighs 40 to 50 pounds. At the back of the skull, where it joined onto the backbone, the Joint has a sort of greasy appearance, as though it had been but recently torn loose from the backbone, and that the flesh of the animal had been preserved for thousands of years in the water and muck before disintegration set in. The head was some six or seven feet from the top of the muck ground, in the side of the ditch bank, and when we were there Sunday little or no effort had been made to search for any other parts of the skeleton, although it was said that one rib, some three or four feet long, was also picked up. It was the intention to make further search, however, for it is very evident that the rest of the skeleton is nearby and, if as well preserved as Is the head, it should prove one of the most perfect specimens of these pre-hls-toric monsters ever unearthed in this country, where they evidently roamed hundreds and thousands of years ago, as frequent finds of parts of skeletons have heretofore been made both in Jasper and other northwestern Indiana counties. Some 22 years ago the Norman boys, it will be remembered, found two large mastodon teeth in the Iroquois river near the Pulllna bridge in Barkley township that weighed 3% pounds each.