Editing Mastodon (section)

==== Earliest finds ====
[[File:Em - Mammut americanum - 9.jpg|thumb|left|''Mammut americanum'' [[molar (tooth)|molar]] tooth, [[Rotunda Museum]]]]
In a letter dating to 1713, [[Edward Hyde, 3rd Earl of Clarendon]] (known also as Lord Cornbury) from [[New York (state)|New York]] reported to the [[Royal Society]] [[learned society]] of [[Great Britain]] that in 1705, a large-sized tooth was found near the side of the [[Hudson River]] by a [[Dutch people|Dutch]] country-fellow and was sold to [[New York General Assembly]] member Van Bruggen for a [[gill (unit)|gill]] of rum, and Bruggen eventually gave it to Cornbury. He then stated that he sent Johannis Abeel, a recorder of [[Albany, New York|Albany]], New York to dig near the original site of the tooth to find more bones.<ref name="stanford"/><ref name="cornbury">{{cite book |last=Weld |first=Charles Richard |year=1848 |title=A History of the Royal Society: With memoirs of the Presidents |chapter=Chapter&nbsp;XV: 1710–1725 |pages=398–433 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5CUEAAAAQAAJ }}</ref>

Abeel reported later that he went to the town of [[Claverack, New York|Claverack]], New York where the original bones were found. American historian Paul Semonin said that the accounts written by Cornbury and Abeel match up with that written by in the July 30, 1705 entry in ''[[The Boston News-Letter]]''.<ref name="monster">{{cite book|last=Semonin|first=Paul|year=2000|title=American Monster: How the Nation's First Prehistoric Creature Became a Symbol of National Identity|chapter=Chapter 1: The Giant of Claverack in Puritan America|publisher=NYU Press|pages=15–40}}</ref> The account reported skeletal evidence of an [[antediluvian]] (or biblical) "[[giant]]" uncovered from Claverack. The [[femur]] and one of the teeth both dissolved before they could be further observed, however.<ref name="warren">{{cite book|last=Warren|first=John Collin|year=1852|title=The Mastodon giganteus of North America|section=Historical sketch|publisher=John Wilson and Son|pages=1–3|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/126175#page/20/mode/1up}}</ref><ref name="stanford">{{cite journal|last=Stanford|first=Donald E.|year=1959|title=The Giant Bones of Claverack, New York, 1705|journal=New York History|volume=40|number=1|pages=47–61|jstor=23153528 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23153528}}</ref>