Map number 1 in 1824 edition

The following selection is from the 1811 edition, followed by selections from another edition.

1811

There are places at Big Bone Lick, where the salt water bubbles tip through the earth, that are rendered a perfect quagmire admitting nothing heavier walking over them than geese or other light web-footed fowl. Cattle dare not venture nearer than to their edges. One of these places appears bottomless for no soundings have ever been found. Throw in a 10 ft. rail endwise, and it buries itself; another embraces near a quarter of an acre, over which grows a very fine and short grass. May it not be reason- able to account for so many of the mammoths bones being deposited at this place, by presuming that in their seeking the salt water, and venturing a little too far, or otherwise that their own enormous weight pushing them forward too far for recovery, and sinking, thus were buried one after another, to the number we now find their remnants. The places where their bones are now found are tolerably hard from filling up by the washings of the small stream which runs through them, and from having been much dug up and the mud exposed to the sun.

      Mr. Colquohoun, a Scotch gentleman, resides at, and owns, this singular spot of ground; and has two extensive salt furnaces at work, which are able to make about 60 bushels per day, notwithstanding the weakness of the water. Mr. Coiquohoun has been at much labor and expense in fixing his furnaces in a superior stile, particularly in the retention of heat, and saving the fuel. His kettles are of an oblong square, coming to about half the size at bottom that they are at the top; they hold about 12 or 15 gals., and are fixed close together in a double row, having their edges covered with sheet lead lapped down dosely cm all sides, so as to prevent any heat from escaping; the fuel is introduced into a grated furnace, whose mouth is closed by an iron door.—The kettles rise gradually from the front to the chimney, so as to occasion a sufficient draught of air. The first kettle in the furnace is round and contains about 100 gallons, and as this receives the greatest degree of heat, and evanorates the water much faster than the smaller ones, they are partly supplied from it after the water has boiled down considerable, and the small black kettles are supplied from those near the front. The kettles are filled with salt water in the first instance from a wooden pipe running over the middle of the furnace, having a spigot hole on each side’ this is supplied by a pipe, from the general reservoir filled from the leading troughs. Mr. Coiquohoun was engaged in September 1810, in boring for salt water and had got 150 feet through solid rock with an inch and a half auger.

      The Big Bone Lick is in the state of Kentucky, 20 miles from Cincinnati on the road leading from that town to the falls of Ohio. The land about it is flat and cold, with scrubby timber, and there is no cleared ground in view of the Lick, not even a garden; notwithstanding, it is worth a visit to the curious, and the superior intelligence and hospi- tality of its worthy proprietor makes such a visit well paid for. The back water, in the very high stages of the Ohio, has been known to inundate this place, and extend for some distance above it.

     Animals bones of enormous size have been found here in great numbers. Some skeletons nearly complete were no long since dug up 11 feet under the surface in a stiff blue clay. These appeared to be the bones of different species of animals, but all remarkably large. some were supposed to be those of the Mammoth, others of a Non-descript. Among these bones, were two horns or fenders, each weighing 150 pounds, 16 feet long, and 18 inches in circumference at the big end; and grinders of the carnivorous kind weighing from 3 to 10 1/2 lb. each; and others of the gramnivorous species, equally large, but quite differently shaped, being flat and ridged -- Ribs, joints of the backbone, and of the foot or paw, thing and hip bones, upper jaw bone, etc., etc., were also found, amounting in the whole to about five tons weight.

     These bones were principally discovered by Doctor Goforth and Mr. Reeder of Cincinnati, who sent them by water to Pittsburgh, with an intention to transport them to Philadelphia, and make sale of them to Mr. Peale, proprietor of the Museum of that city. -- They were however while in Pittsburgh, discovered by an Irish gentleman, a traveller, who purchased them, reshipped them down the Ohio, and thence to Europe, where no doubt he will accumulate a handsome fortune by exhibiting them to the different courts of that continent.