On or near this date, Lewis departs aboard the barge with fossils from Big Bone Lick.[1]No known record provides the exact dates Lewis was at Big Bone Lick. We do know he was in Cincinnati on 3 October 1803, and that he had left Big Bone Lick before Thomas Rodney arrived there on 10 … Continue reading Fellow traveler Thomas Rodney speculates that the “massy forms of bone [are] beyond the size of any animals existing or that ever did exist”.
Ohio River near Petersburg
Date and photographer unknown. See https://www.nkyviews.com. Used with permission.
Rodney’s Theory
After departing Big Bone Lick, Thomas Rodney examines the fossils he had collected there, and speculates that they may be not be the actual bones of animals, but nature’s recreation, and exaggeration, of decomposed animals. Lewis likely made his own speculations as he traveled between Big Bone Lick and the Falls of the Ohio on 8 October.
On the Ohio, October 11th 1803, Tuesday.
I imbrace a moment of lezure to make a few observation on the bones of the salt lick. I have in the course of my enquieries into the opperations of nature observed that she produces boney, shelly, and other substance in imitation of those that belong to animal and vegetable nature . . . .
These being reduced to simple elements again by time in great abundance in time by the force of nature might be stured up to motion again and produce massy forms of bone beyond the size of any animals existing or that ever did exist . . . .
Another thing is observable. These fosil teeth are of a form different from those of all known animals.
—Thomas Rodney[2]10 October 1803. Dwight L. Smith and Ray Swick, ed., A Journey Through the West: Thomas Rodney’s 1803 Journal from Delaware to the Mississippi Territory (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1997), … Continue reading
Notes
| ↑1 | No known record provides the exact dates Lewis was at Big Bone Lick. We do know he was in Cincinnati on 3 October 1803, and that he had left Big Bone Lick before Thomas Rodney arrived there on 10 October. |
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| ↑2 | 10 October 1803. Dwight L. Smith and Ray Swick, ed., A Journey Through the West: Thomas Rodney’s 1803 Journal from Delaware to the Mississippi Territory (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1997), 113–114. |
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Discover More
- The Lewis and Clark Expedition: Day by Day by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). The story in prose, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
- The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery (abridged) by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2003). Selected journal excerpts, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
- The Lewis and Clark Journals. by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001). The complete story in 13 volumes.
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Unless otherwise noted, journal excerpts are from The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, edited by Gary E. Moulton, 13 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983-2001).