We found near this mastodon many chisel-like tusks that had fallen out of their respective jaws and lay scattered with the other bones. By comparing this specimen with the new species, it will be noticed that there is quite a difference in size, though evidently they were about the same age, as in both cases all the teeth have been discarded except the last molars.
The teeth of these animals were kept sharp by the sand that adhered to the roots on which they lived. Falling into the pits and valleys between the crests of enamel, it scoured away the dentine and cementum, and kept the great grinders ever sharp and ready for use. It is a distinguishing characteristic of these early mastodons that their tusks have a strip of enamel along the inside, while the modern elephants’ tusks have only a vestige of enamel at the extreme tip that is quickly worn off.
Another remarkable inhabitant of Kansas during the Loup Fork Period was the three-toed horse, an animal but little larger than the new-born colt of an ordinary farm horse, which evidently lived in herds, judging from the great quantity of loose teeth that we have found. Its toes were spreading, which enabled it to walk over bogs and mossy quagmires on the shores of lakes or rivers, and thus escape the fangs of bloodthirsty tigers by venturing farther out on the soft ground than they dared to follow.
In 1882, while employed by the Agassiz Museum, I found the famous Sternberg Quarry at Long Island on Prairie Dog Creek in Phillips County. I had been exploring for weeks the region at the head of the branches of Deer Creek, which spread out in the divide like a fan; but although once in a while, especially in the neighborhood of Bread Bowl Mound, I had found fragments of the bones of Loup Fork animals in the sod, I had not met with much success, as the rocks here disintegrate so easily and hold moisture so readily that the whole country is covered with grass. There are thirty-three streams in this county as a result of the immense amount of moisture which accumulates in these sandstone beds and is carried to the surface in springs.
One very hot day I started to cross the divide to Prairie Dog Creek. I had the wagon sheet stretched over the bows, the sides lifted to admit the breeze, and sleepy with the heat, I let the horses go on about as they pleased; not noticing, until the level rays of the sun warned me that it was time to camp, that I had gone farther east than I had intended. I had my camp outfit with me, however, and as I saw a bunch of trees in a ravine a mile from the creek I knew that there must be water there. So the three requisites, grass, wood, and water, were at hand.