|
|
Botany The scientists observed a very interesting plant called the Kentucky coffee tree, Gymnocladus dioica. The early settlers used its seeds as a substitute for coffee. These seeds are said to be poisonous until roasted. The tree is also a folk method for killing flies. The leaves are crushed and milk and sugar are added. It is said that any fly that eats this mixture will die. |
|
Zoology The FOD scientists saw the first 17-year cicada of the trip. The cicada digs its way to the surface of the soil, climbs up a tree, grass, or weeds and molts its old shell and emerges from it as a flying insect. The noise the cicadas make is their call for a mate. They mate, lay their eggs, and die. The eggs hatch and start the 17-year cycle over again. |
|
Anthropology Springs in the area of Big Bone Lick contain brine that is high in salt. Early Native Americans came to the springs to collect salt and in the late 1790s, the first commercial salt operation was begun. As much as 60 bushels of salt could be produced in one day, which meant boiling down 400 to 800 gallons of the salt brine to produce a single bushel of salt. Today we think of salt as a seasoning, but before there was canning, freezing, and a reliable year-round food supply, salt was important for preserving food, especially meats. Even today salt-cured meats and pickles are components of our diets. |
|
Geology This morning part of the team visited Big Bone Lick State Park, about 70 miles northeast of Louisville. Thomas Jefferson specifically requested Lewis to visit digs that were in progress that unearthed huge animal bones. The bones were first identified at the site in 1739. Jefferson thought these huge mammals might still roam the lands yet to be explored by Lewis & Clark. However, no mammoths or mastodons were found on the expedition. The bones represented animals that lived 11,000 years ago during the last Ice Age. Approximately 8 other species of large land mammals have been identified, most recently as 1995. |
by a team from the University of Nebraska. Few bones remain at the park--
they were dispersed across the young country and shipped as far as Paris.
Upon returning to Louisville, we visited the Falls of the Ohio State Park, renowned for some of the most extensive fossils beds in the world representing the Devonian Period (over 375 million years old). The fosils are present in limestones there were deposited on a shallow, tropical shelf similar to the present-day Bahamas. The diversity of sea life (over 600 identified species) include early primitive fishes, corals, sponges, brachiopods, mollusks, trilobites, bryozoans and crinoids--many of these species became extinct long ago. |
