78 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERT. 



Africa furnishes seven-eighths of all that is worked up into ornaments, toys, 

 and crucifixes in France; heathen gods, boxes, and fans in India and China; 

 billiard-balls, boxes, miniature plates, chessmen, mathematical rules, keys 

 for piano-fortes, organs and melodeons, fans, combs, folders, dominoes, and 

 a thousand and one other things, in England, Germany, and the United 



States. 



Portugal Avas the England of the sixteenth century in more respects than 

 one. For two centuries Portugal held, in the East and on the African coast, 

 the power and influence now in the hands of England. Lisbon at that time 

 was the head of the ivory market; now London is the mart \vhere ivory- 

 dealers most ck> congregate. It sometimes occurs that the Salem and other 

 American merchants engaged in the African trade ship their tusks or teeth, 

 in commercial parlance to London after they have brought them from the 

 Zanzibar and Mozambique coast to the United States. In the world's great 

 metropolis there occurs at regular intervals one of those sales which furnish 

 the manufactures with their stock of elephants' teeth. 



While we associate ivory and India together, but very little of the former 

 comes from the latter. It is estimated that to supply ivory to the British 

 market for the last few years, it has required about 1,000,000 Ibs. annually. 

 Of this quantity, Ceylon, the great elephant park of India, furnishes only 500 

 or 600 tusks. The ivory which is put down in the printed reports of sales 

 as " Bombay," in nine cases out of ten is shipped by Mohammedan mer- 

 chants from the east coast of Africa to the large north-western commercial 

 emporium of Bombay. We do not mean, however, to assert that no ele- 

 phants' tusks come from Asia; for occasionally there will be small lots come 

 from Ceylon and Sumatra. There is also a large ivory trade between Zanzi- 

 bar and China, via Bombay. A great deal of ivory, we may state, by the 

 way, now reaches the United States directly from Africa. 



The immense demand for elephants' teeth has of late years increased the sup- 

 ply from all parts of Africa. At the end of the last century the annual aver- 

 age importation into England Avas only 102,500 Ibs.; in 1827 it reached 364,784 

 Ibs., or 6,080 tusks, which would require the death of at least 3,040 male ele- 

 phants. It is probable that the slaughter is much greater, for the teeth of 

 the female elephant are A'ery small ; and Burchell tells us, in his African traA r - 

 els, that he met with some elephant-hunters who had shot tAvelve huge fel- 

 lows, Avhich, however, altogether produced no more than 200 Ibs. of ivory. 

 To produce 1,000,000 Ibs. of ivory, the present annual English import, we 

 should require estimating each tusk at 60 Ibs. the life of 8,333 male ele- 

 phants. It is said that 4,000 tuskers suffer death every year to supply the 

 United States Avith combs, knife-handles, billiard-balls, etc. etc. 



A tusk Aveighing 70 Ibs. and upAvards is considered by dealers as first-class. 

 Cuvier formed a table of the most remarkble tusks of which any account has 

 been given. The largest on record Avas one which Avas sold at Amsterdam, 

 which weighed 350 Ibs. In the late sales at London, the largest of the " Bom- 

 bay and Zanzibar" was 122 Ibs. ; of " Angola and Lisbon," 69 Ibs.; of "Cape 

 of Good Hope and Natal," 106 Ibs.; of " Cape Coast Castle, Lagos," etc., 

 114 Ibs.; of "Gaboon," 91 Ibs.; "Egyptian," 114 Ibs. But it must not be 

 inferred from this that large tusks are noAV rare. On the contrary, it is 

 probable that more long and heavy teeth are noAV brought to market than in 

 any preA'ious century. 



A short time ago Julius Pratt & Co. cut up, at their establishment in Meri- 

 den, Ct., a tusk that Avas nine and a half feet long, eight inches in diameter, 



