ix " CORNES DE LICORNE " 227 



How primeval man, with his inferior weapons, slew the 

 Mammoth is not easy to understand ; but that they were con- 

 temporaneous is clearly shown by associated remains, and by the 

 notorious sketch of the Mammoth on a piece of its own ivory, in 

 which curved tusks and a forehead like that of an Indian Elephant 

 are plainly to be seen. Although it was only so recently as the 

 year 1799 that an example of this great creature was actually 

 studied on the spot, and removed to St. Petersburg, the existence 

 of Mammoths and of ivory is a matter of much more ancient 

 knowledge. M. Trouessart relates l that fossil ivory was known 

 to the Greeks. Theophrastus spoke of ivory imbedded in the 

 soil, and the tusks were recovered by the Chinese. It is a curious 

 fact that the Chinese described and figured the Mammoth as a 

 kind of gigantic Eat. The likeness between the elephantine molar 

 and that of Eodents has been commented upon ; but the existence 

 of its tusks below the level of the ground led the Chinese Natural 

 Historians to consider that the ways of life of the Mammoth were 

 those of the Mole. As to the carcases themselves, the Chinese 

 said that the flesh was cold, but very healthy to eat. This 

 expression can hardly be explained, except upon the view that 

 fresh carcases were known to that people long before they were 

 known to us of the Western world. The value of the Mammoth 

 ivory was known to antiquity ; the famous Haroun-al-Easchid 

 gave to King Charlemagne not only a pair of living Elephants, 

 but a " horn of Licorne," which seems undoubtedly to have been 

 a name for the tusks of the Mammoth. For in an account of the 

 sacred treasures of Saint Denis, published in the year 1646, the 

 author states this to be the fact. 



The causes of the disappearance of the Mammoth are not easy 

 to understand. Some held that it was a naked animal like the 

 existing Elephants, and that the lowering of the temperature in 

 Siberia proved fatal; it is, of course, now certain that it was 

 clothed with dense woolly hair. Along with the bogged corpses 

 of the great pachyderm, numerous trunks of pine-trees have been 

 found, together with associated remains of other animals now 

 extinct in that neighbourhood. Thus it is plain that Siberia was 

 once covered by mighty forests, through which the Mammoth 

 roamed. The decay of these forests, upon whose branches the 

 Elephant fed, as is attested by the remains of pine leaves found 



1 Bull. Soc. Nat. d'Acclimat. xlv. 1898, p. 41. 



