It is a process that is going on continually.

At least, that's a plausible theory, and it's as good as any other." But most of the salt-makers did not bother themselves about causes, and they accepted the giant bones as facts, without curiosity about their origin.

Nor did they neglect to put them to use.

By sticking them deep in the ground they made tripods of them on which they hung their kettles for boiling the salt water, and of others they devised comfortable seats for themselves.

To such modern uses did the mastodon come! But to the schoolmaster and the two boys the bones were an unending source of interest, and in the intervals of labor, which sometimes were pretty long, particularly for Mr.Pennypacker, they were ever prowling in the swamp for a bone bigger than any that they had found before.
But the salt-making progressed rapidly.