Description
Describes the discovery of mastodon bones in New York in 1799, and the efforts of Charles Willson Peale, the founder of the natural history museum in Philadelphia, to identify the animal they came from.
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When giant bones were uncovered in a farmer’s field in 1799, no one knew what sort of animal they came from, so they called it the Great Unknown. Charles Willson Peale heard of the discovery and set out on an adventure to recover an entire skeleton and display it in his new Museum of Natural History. His efforts helped to identify the fossils and prove, for the first time, the idea that animals could become extinct . . .
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