Note 104 — II A Selection of George Croghan’s Letters and Journals Relating to Tours into the Western Country—November 16, 1750-November, 1765. (continued 2)

Big Bone Lick, in Boone County, Kentucky, was visited by the French in the early eighteenth century. It was a landmark for early Kentucky hunters, who describe it in terms similar to those used by Croghan. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, scientists took much interest in the remains of the mammoth (or mastodon)—the “elephant’s bones” described by Croghan. Thomas Jefferson and several members of the American Philosophical Society, at Philadelphia, attempted to secure a complete skeleton of this extinct giant; and a number of fossils from the lick were also sent to Europe. Dr. Goforth of Cincinnati undertook an exploration to the lick at his own expense (1803), but was later robbed of the result. The store of huge bones is not yet entirely exhausted, specimens being yet occasionally excavated—the present writer having examined some there in 1894.—Ed.