The mastodon, from Peter Parley’s Visit to the City of New-York (1841-1844?)
Among the books published by Mahlon Day were a handful of little chapbooks
with the name “Peter Parley" in the titles. Parley—the iconic literary
character created by
Samuel Griswold Goodrich—was a popular
brand name by the time Day’s books came out, which would have made the little
paperbacks an easy sell. Some of Day’s “Parley" books were cobbled together
from other sources, and Parley’s Book of Books reprinted pieces from
Parley’s Magazine; but
works like Stories About the Earth, Sun, Moon and Stars and Peter
Parley’s Visit to the City of New-York reprinted part of Goodrich’s
books.
New-York takes its text from the first chapters of Peter Parley’s
Tales About the State and City of New York (New York: Pendleton and Hill, 1832):
The interesting details which are contained in the
following pages, comprise the first six chapters of a neat and instructive
little work, by that universally admired writer for youth, whose name may be
found in the title-page, entitled, “Peter Parley’s Tales about the State and
City of New-York;”—containing an account of his rambles, and furnishing many
entertaining and useful facts in relation to the natural history of the State,
its condition, and its people, and sketches of its early history. It is very
appropriate as a reading-book for schools. [“Advertisement”]
What Day didn’t have were the illustrations Goodrich included in his book.
Here, it means that the chapbook doesn’t contain the small picture of the
mastodon skeleton in Charles Willson Peale’s
museum, which appeared in several works by Goodrich.
http://www.merrycoz.org/books/Goodrich/PPNY/DAY.xhtml
The mastodon, from Peter Parley’s Visit to the City of New-York. From Parley’s History of New York (NY: Mahlon Day & Co., 1841-1844; pp. 21-22)
I must not forget to mention some very astonishing bones
that I saw at one of the museums. They were dug from the earth, and
belonged to a huge animal, five times as large as an elephant, called
mastodon.
None of these creatures are now to be found in any part of
the world, but we know they once existed in this country, for skeletons have
been
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p. 22
found in different places. Some years ago, the bones of a
mastodon were found near Newbury, in the State of New-York. They were dug
up and carried to Philadelphia, where they are still to be seen.
It is wonderful to reflect that such huge creatures once
roamed in the forests of America. A full grown mastodon must have been as
large as a small house. As he walked along, he must have shaken the very
ground beneath his feet, and all the other animals must have scampered away
at his approach.