Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I, Part 60

Author: Stevens, Walter Barlow, 1848-1939
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: St. Louis, Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company
Number of Pages: 1074

USA > Missouri > Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I > Part 60

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And Then the Zuglodon.

With the good British gold in his pocket Dr. Koch came back to St. Louis and became a hunter of prehistoric bones. He traveled up and down and across the Mississippi Valley, investigating every discovery of bones. For years he kept up the ceaseless search. At length his patience was rewarded. In a corner of Alabama he found the remains of a monster which seemed to be related to the whale or sea-cow. The doctor gathered up all of the bones he could find and took them to Germany. The skeleton was set up at Dresden, and the profes- sors had a high old time disputing the correctness of the locations which Dr. Koch had given the bones. "The Zuglodon" was the name Dr. Koch gave this new monster. After the bones had been arranged and rearranged until the pro- fessors were satisfied the puzzle had been worked out, a bargain was struck for the transfer of the skeleton to the Vienna Museum. But when the museum authorities had bought the zuglodon they were in the fix of the Vicar of Wake- field with his family picture-they had no room in the museum large enough for the skeleton. The zuglodon measured ninety-six feet in length. Another sale was made, and the gigantic frame found a resting place in the Berlin Museum.

Dr. Koch came back to the United States, leaving his family on the other side in comfortable circumstances as the result of his latest deal in prehistoric bones. It wasn't long until he turned up a second zuglodon. When this was disposed of the doctor started out again and brought in his third zuglodon.

In St. Louis, on Market street, opposite the court house, about the time of the war or a little earlier, was a collection of wonders known as Wyman's museum. Dr. Koch's third zuglodon was the star curiosity in this museum for several years. The museum building ran back the depth of the lot, but the exhibition hall was too short to accommodate the full length of the zuglodon. The vertebræ were not complete. Those which were missing Dr. Koch had sup- plied with imaginary substitutes made from plaster of paris. The head of the zuglodon was near the entrance. The body extended down the side of the hall to the extreme end and then curled around and left about fifteen feet of tail on the other side of the hall. The zuglodon remained on exhibition in the Market street museum several years. Then it was sold to a Chicago man, and was given the chief place in the museum there. The head of the zuglodon was the first thing the visitor saw when he entered the Chicago museum, and when he had followed the vertebrae in their winding course he had about com- pleted the circuit of the various rooms. The zuglodon held its place as the

MASTODON SKELETONS EXCAVATED AT KIMMSWICK

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biggest thing in Chicago until the great fire of 1871, and then it disappeared in smoke.

An Official Announcement.

The St. Louis New Era of March 31, 1842, announced that "Koch's Mis- sourium and the Mammoth or great Mastodon" were on exhibition. Professor Koch said by way of information :

"These astonishing relics of the ancient world bear indisputable testimony of the great changes that have taken place upon the earth and how different the forms of creation from the present. Also, how limited our knowledge of the ancient world. These remains were discovered some miles from St. Louis in Jefferson county, and in the vicinity of each other. They are indisputably the greatest curiosity of the present time, and any museum in Europe or America would consider it an honor to possess them. The Missourium is until now, a perfectly unknown animal, and as it has never before been found, leads me to the conclusion, that it only inhabited the 'Far West,' and this consideration induces me to call it the Missourium, in honor of the state where it has been found.

"The animal has been much larger than the elephant. Especially remarkable is the construction of. the forehead, which shows that the animal was of the genus proboscis, but of an utterly different construction from those of this class of the present day. The back part of the head has a near resemblance to the mastodon. The tusks protrude from the nose or rather with the trunk has formed the nose, and are only half an inch apart, projecting to right and left from the trunk, which, on the head, lies above the tusks. The head of the mastodon is undoubtedly the largest of this gigantic animal that has ever yet been found. The tusks that are now in the head, precisely as when the animal was living, measure. from tip to tip 21 feet; from the tip of the nose to where the spine enters the neck, 6 feet; from the zegomatical arch over the head to the opposite zegomatical arch, 4 feet; from the tip of the nose to the root of the tusk, 2 feet; the nose projects over the lower jaw 15 inches; breadth of the nose at its extremity, 17 inches. That these animals were destroyed by the hand of Providence, through a great and wonderful con- vulsion of the earth, the situation in which they were found bears ample and indisputable testimony."

The Great Mastodon Graveyard.

Near Kimmswick, in Jefferson county, is the historic mastodon graveyard of Missouri. Professor W. H. Holmes, curator of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, wrote about this wonder:

"I have just paid my first visit to the mastodon beds of Kimmswick, and they are the most wonderful I have ever seen. Missouri may well boast of it as a page out of the history of the world that has no duplicate. It is 'a treasure most rare. Every piece of this great collection ought to be carefully preserved until science may reach the point where it can put this page in the right place in the history of the earth, and leave the story complete.

"The deposit lies at the foot of a bluff, varying in height from a few feet to fifty feet. At some time there has been a river or lake at the base of the bluff. The water has left a deposit common to all bodies of water; added to this the cliff, which is of friable material, has washed away on the ground beneath.

"Where those two deposits meet a great number of mastodons, probably hundreds, have found their death. There are evidences that there have been, besides mastodons, such species of animals as bison, buffalo and probably wolf, etc.

"As to the age of the deposit, there is no saying in a definite way. The time at which scientists begin to reckon is the primary age, previous to which there are millions of years of which no record is clearly made. Following the primary age there is the secondary

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age, and after that the tertiary age. Following that we have the glacial age. The records which scientists have found of this latter age incline one to the belief that the Kimms- wick deposits belong to that age. One cannot be sure, however, that different ages are not represented.

"This much is sure, that as time passes these prehistoric relics will become of more interest to the scientific world. Some day we shall evolve a brain that can read these scattered fragments of the book and put them together in their correct order. Then we shall have the whole story of the earth complete.

"More than a thousand prehistoric bones, including 30 great tusks from 14 to 18 inches in diameter and from 18 to 20 feet long, and 350 teeth, 60 jaws of the mastodon with teeth in them, remains of the skeleton of a man, the musk ox, the reindeer, threetoed horse and many other bones not identified, have been found there. Some of these fossils were found as much as sixteen feet under ground. These fossils were found in a space 260 by 800 feet. In the same vicinity Indian mounds exist and parts of earth pots used by the Indians for making salt have also been brought to light."

The Legend of Mina Sauk.

Not far from the Arcadia Valley, as the crow flies, is "the Tom Suck country." The name is an Anglo-Saxon corruption of Ton Sauk who was an Indian chief. The Tom Suck river rises in a great spring on the Big Tom Suck mountain. In its course are the falls of Mina Sauk who was the daughter of the chief. Allen Hinchey has told the legend which ascribes the origin of the spring high up on the mountain to a bolt of lightning. This was sent by the Storm King. The chief of a hostile tribe had made love to Mina Sauk. He was captured and killed.

"According to the legend, the young captive was thrown from ledge to ledge, being caught on the points of up-lifted spears. His grief-stricken bride, calling down a curse on her tribe, leaped from the highest ledge and was dashed to death beside the body of her slain lover. The Great Spirit invoked the Storm King, causing a cyclone to utterly destroy the people of Ton Sauk. A bolt of lightning striking the mountain top caused a stream of water to flow over the ledges into the gorge below, to wipe away the blood of the young lover. On the banks of the stream sprang up flowers of crimson hue, which grow there today, by the everflowing water and which are known as Indian pinks.

"Down in the valley of the Tom Suck, where the stream winds its turbulent way through granite boulders, is a country hard of access. Ingress is possible at one point, through a rent in the granite bluff so narrow that careful driving is necessary to guide a vehicle through the portal. It is known to the people of the Tom Suck as the Devil's Toll Gate, and this opening is accounted for by a Piankisha legend as follows: Long years ago, before the coming of the Piankishas, a maiden of a tribe living in the Valley of Flowers became lost in the Tom Suck wilds. A monster of gigantic size and ferocious aspect accosted her, and as escape was cut off by the granite wall her capture seemed certain until the Great Spirit, with a bolt of lightning rent, the granite wall, affording her opportunity to escape."

The Prehistoric Footprints.

The impressions of a foot on the limestone at the river's edge interested greatly visitors to St. Louis in the early days. They seemed to have been made by a giant walking from the water toward the plateau. Edmund Flagg, the newspaper man, made a critical examination of the footprints and offered a theory about them :

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"The impressions are, to all appearances, those of a man standing in an erect posture, with the left foot a little advanced and the heels drawn in. By a close inspection it will be perceived that these are not the impressions of feet accustomed to the European shoe ; the toes being much spread, and the foot flattened in the manner that is observed in per- sons unaccustomed to the close shoe. The probability, therefore, of their having been imparted by some individual of a race of men who were strangers to the art of tanning skins and at a period much anterior to that to which any traditions of the present race of Indian reaches, derives additional weight from this peculiar shape of the feet. In other respects the impressions are strikingly natural, exhibiting the muscular marks of the foot with great preciseness and faithfulness to nature. The rock containing these interesting impressions is a compact limestone of a grayish, blue color. This rock is ex- tensively used as a building material in St. Louis. Foundations of dwellings and the military works erected by the French and Spaniards sixty years ago are still as solid and unbroken as when first laid."

· Major Long and his party of scientists, on the government expedition of 1819-20, devoted attention to the footprints. As early as that time the slab had been quarried out and was considered a scientific treasure :

"This stone was taken from the slope of the immediate bank of the Mississippi below the range of the periodical floods. To us there seems nothing inexplicable or difficult to understand in its appearance. Nothing is more probable than that impressions of human feet made upon that thin stratum of mud, which was deposited upon the shelvings of the rocks, and left naked by the retiring of the waters, may, by the induration of the mud. have been preserved, and at length have acquired the appearance of an impression made immediately upon the limestone. This supposition will be somewhat confirmed, if we examine the mud and slime deposited by the water of the Mississippi, which will be found to consist of such an intimate mixture of clay and lime, as under favorable circumstances would very readily become indurated. We are not confident that the impressions above mentioned have originated in the manner here supposed, but we cannot by any means adopt the opinions of some, who have considered them contemporaneous to those casts of submarine animals, which occupy so great a part of the body of the limestone. We have no hesitation in saying that, whatever those impressions may be, if they were produced as they appear to have been, by the agency of human feet, they belong to a period far more recent than that of the deposition of the limestone on whose surface they are found."

In addition to impressions of the human foot, there were upon the stone irregular tracings as if made by some person holding a stick. The local theory was that these marks were made by a human being walking on limestone when it was in a plastic state. The stone passed into the possession of George Rapp, founder of the society of Harmonites. Rapp was from Wurtemberg. His sect believed in communism. The members practiced primitive Christianity as Rapp conceived it to have been. Harmony, Pennsylvania, and New Harmony, Indiana, had been established. Rapp moved about making converts. The "prehistoric footprints" at St. Louis appealed to his imagination. Years after Missourians had forgotten about the limestone slab it was doing duty at New Harmony in Posey county. Rapp was telling his disciples that the angel Gabriel visited him one night, blessed the location of the colony and said it would always be favored with peace and plenty. As a token he left his footprints on the rock and there they were.

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Lilliput of the Meramec.

About 1820 St. Louis newspapers told of the discovery of many graves on the bank of the Meramec river about fifteen miles from the mouth. The graves were said to contain skeletons of a diminutive race. So much had the story impressed the neighborhood, that a town which had been laid out bore the name of Lilliput. In one of the graves a skull without teeth had been found. This had been made the basis for another local theory that these prehistoric residents of the Meramec had jaws like a turtle. Government scientists with Long's expedition were so much impressed with the reports that they took a boat, floated down to the mouth of the Meramec and rowed up stream to Lilliput. They found that the graves were walled in neatly, and covered with flat stones. They opened several and saw that the bones were of ordinary size, seemingly having been buried after the flesh had been separated from them, according to the custom of certain Indian tribes. The skull with the turtle-like jaw was that of an old man who had lost his teeth. The scientists satisfied themselves that there was nothing extraordinary in the contents of the graves. As the narrative ran, they "sold their skiff, shouldered their guns, bones and spade, and bent their weary steps toward St. Louis, distant sixteen miles, where they arrived at II p. m., having had ample time, by the way, to indulge in sundry reflections on that quality of the mind, either imbibed in the nursery or generated by evil communications, which incites to the love of the marvelous, and, by hyperbole, casts the veil of falsehood over the charming features of simple nature."

The Discovery of Coal.

Not all of the scientific investigations at St. Louis turned out as discourag- ingly as the expedition to Lilliput. John Bradbury was well satisfied with a trip inspired by the report of coal discoveries: "In the year 1810 the grass on the prairie of the American bottom in the Illinois territory took fire and kindled the dry stump of a tree, about five miles east of St. Louis. This stump set fire to a fine bed of coal on which it stood, and the coal continued to burn for several months, until the bottom fell in and extinguished it. This bed breaks out at the bottom of the bluffs of the Mississippi, and is about five feet in thickness. I visited the place, and by examining the indications found the same vein at the surface several miles distant."

Brackenridge also reported upon this chance discovery of coal: "On the east side of the Mississippi, in the bluffs of the American bottom, a tree taking fire some years ago, communicated it by one of its roots to the coal, which con- tinued to burn until the fire was at length smothered by the falling in of a large mass of the incumbent earth. The appearance of fire is still visible for several rods around. About two miles further up the bluffs a fine coal bank has been opened ; the vein as thick as any of those near Pittsburg."

John Bradbury explored the caverns in the vicinity of St. Louis and told of the encouragement they offered to a new industry: "The abundance of nitre generated in the caves of this country is a circumstance which ought not to pass unnoticed. These caves are always in the limestone rocks; and in those which produce the nitre the bottom is covered with earth which is strongly impreg- nated with it and visible in needle-like crystals. In order to obtain the nitre, the

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earth is collected and lixiviated ; the water after being saturated is boiled down and suffered to stand until the crystals are formed. In this manner it is no uncommon thing for three men to make one hundred pounds of saltpeter in one day. In the spring of 1810 James McDonald and his two sons went to some caves on the Gasconade river to make saltpeter, and in a few weeks returned with three thou- sand pounds weight to St. Louis."

John Bradbury's Investigations.

An object of attention by the early scientists of St. Louis was Sulphur Springs. This was in the valley of the River des Peres, not far from what became Cheltenham. When John Bradbury, the English naturalist, decided to make his home in St. Louis, he built his house near this spring. The members of Long's expedition found Bradbury living there in 1819. They included men- tion of the water in their report to the government. At that time horses and cattle at pasture went a long distance to drink the sulphur water in preference to any other. When thirty years later the Missouri Pacific began building west- ward there was a station at Sulphur Springs. A wooden hotel was built and a resort was maintained. The spring boiled up in the channel of the River des Peres. When that stream became an open sewer, as the city extended west- ward, the spring was polluted, and the use of its water was abandoned. John Bradbury made expeditions with the fur traders and trappers. He brought back to St. Louis marvelous stories about animals along the Missouri.

"I will here state a few of what I certainly believe to be facts; some I know to ho so, and of others I have seen strong presumptive proofs. The opinion of the hunt rs respecting the beaver go much beyond the statements of any author whom I have read. They state that an old beaver which has escaped from a trap can scarcely ever afterwards be caught, as traveling in situations where traps are usually placed, he carries a stick in his mouth with which he probes the sides of the river, that the stick may be caught in the trap and thus save himself. They say also of this animal that the young are educated by the old ones. It is well known that in constructing their dams the first step the beaver takes is to cut down a tree that shall fall across the stream intended to be dammed. The hunters in the early part of our voyage informed me that they had often found trees near the edge of a creek in part cut through and abandoned; and always observed that those trees would not have fallen across the creek. By comparing the marks left on these trees with others, they found them much smaller. They not only concluded they were made by young beavers, but that the old ones, perceiving their error, had caused them to desist. They promised to show me proofs of this, and during our voyage I saw several, and in no instance would the trees thus abandoned have fallen across the creek.

"I myself witnessed an instance of a doe, when pursued, although not many seconds out of sight, so effectually hide her fawn that we could not find it, although assisted by a dog. I mentioned this fact to the hunters who assured me that no dog, or perhaps any beast of prey, can follow a fawn by the scent. They showed me in a full grown deer a gland and a tuft of red hair situated a little above the hind part of the forefoot, which had a very strong smell of musk. This tuft they call the scent, and believe that the route of the animal is betrayed by the effluvia proceeding from it. This tuft is mercifully with- held until the animal has acquired strength. What a benevolent arrangement!"

Of the trappers with whom he traveled, Bradbury said: "They can imitate the cry or note of any animal found in the American wilds so exactly as to deceive the animals themselves."

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The Clayton Ax.

In the collection of the Missouri Historical Society, is a grooved stone ax, presented by W. K. Kavanaugh. Of this ax, Gerard Fowke, archeologist widely known, said :

"If the statement regarding its discovery be correct, it is the oldest specimen of human handiwork that has been found in the state. In making the cut near Clayton for the Belt line, particular attention was paid to the character of the earth to be removed. The specifications called for different prices per cubic yard according to the material excavated. For this reason the contractors were careful to note and measure all the variations of rock and clay. The native clay in this region, which remains after the weathering away of the limestone, is much older than the glacial or later deposits. It was dry land before the ice-sheet appeared. Above this clay lies the loess, a yellow earth which was deposited by the floods immediately following the receding of the glacier. It is positively stated by the finder, that the 'Clayton ax' was lying on this original clay and partially imbedded in it; and that the loess lay immediately upon it. The impression of the implement was distinct in both the materials. If this is actually the case, it can be ex- plained only upon the fact that the person, Indian or whatever he is to be called, who owned this ax was living in the region before the close of the glacial period. Moreover, at that time he had learned how to fashion stone implements in a manner suitable to his needs, for this ax is fully equal in symmetry and finish to those which are found on the surface and to be attributed to the race which last preceded the white man in the territory. It is unfortunate that the matrix in which the ax was found, was not preserved. If it had been taken out with the clay adhering to one side, and the loess to the other side, there could have been no question as to its antiquity. As the matter stands, however, the most that can be said is that the chance for inaccurate observation in such a case is too great for a statement of this kind to be accepted unless abundantly and absolutely verified by persons who are so thoroughly familiar with the various geological formations as to avoid the possibility of error."

Beckwith's collection of Missouri antiquities indicates a large population in Southeast Missouri before the white man came. These aboriginal inhabitants not only made pottery for utility, but they decorated and embellished. They had pots and kettles with handles to be lifted and with ears to be hung over fires. They put handles on bowls and shaped them to represent fishes and squirrels. Some of the pots were of several gallons capacity. There were water bottles of plain shape like gourds. There were other bottles shaped like men and women. A favorite design for a water bottle was a deformed woman with her legs bent under the body, her arms resting on her knees. Mr. Beckwith found one water receptacle shaped like a man with his arms hanging down and his hands across his stomach. This vessel was painted a deep yellow with white stripes curving about the body. A breechclout in red completed the art work. Another of the images found in Southeast Missouri was formed like a woman with skirts and having what appeared to be a pappoose on her back.

Missouri Folklore.

The study of folklore was one of the few things that Eugene Field did not satirize. The poet was a folklorist in good and regular standing. He became one of the investigators about 1890. His fellow students said that his verses gained in beauty and expression from that time. Field delved into the folklore of childhood and brought out the wealth of it. In that field he was considered easily the master.

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Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I, Part 60

Author: Stevens, Walter Barlow, 1848-1939 Publication date: 1921 Publisher: St. Louis, Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company Number of Pages: 1074

Author: Stevens, Walter Barlow, 1848-1939
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: St. Louis, Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company
Number of Pages: 1074