deposit to adhere to its proximate kindred matter, and forms thus
a solid and adhering body.

It is also somewhat worthy of observation that fossiliferous remains
occur more frequently, than elsewhere, in marshy and swampy places
in this country. Thus the low marshes known as the "Blue Licks"
in Kentucky, and other similar places abound in specimens of fossil
remains. These are often, indeed, quite commonly found near the
surface of the ground, and it is a fact that the material and
formation of marshy grounds change less through the operation of
time than other places. The Pantine Marshes and the Marshfield
Fens have preserved forms and characteristics for centuries upon
centuries. Why is it then, that we are to be driven for a solution
of the question as to the character of this curiosity to a hundred
improbable and unnatural suppositions, when the thing may be explained
by perfectly natural causes without violating any probabilities?

It is somewhat amusing to talk with the various advocates of the
"statue theory," as each successive one is sure to knock over his
predecessor's structure before he begins to build his own.

The endless suppositions which are produced to account for this
marvelous work as a production of the sculptor are certainly a
great credit to the imaginative faculties or inventive genius of
our people, but people of ordinary intelligence find it hard to
believe that men of wonderful genius and skill inhabited our
original forests for the purpose of producing gems of art and
then burying them in the marshes, or that men of culture and
education go traveling in a wild and barbarous country
encumbered by a piece of statuary weighing about two tons