ABOUT ELEPHANTS. 



495 



Of this huge elephant we possess considerable knowledge, inasmuch 

 as specimens have been obtained, literally packed amid the Siberian 

 ice, and so perfectly preserved that even the delicate tissues of the 

 eyes could be inspected. This was the case in the famous specimen 

 found in the frozen soil of a cliff at the mouth of the Lena in 1799. 

 The skin of this huge elephant was then seen to be clothed with a thick 

 coating of reddish wool interspersed with black hairs. The skeleton, 

 removed in 1806 by Mr. Adams, and preserved in St. Petersburg, 

 measures sixteen feet four inches in length, the height is nine feet four 



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inches, and the tusks measure each nine feet six inches along their 

 curve. The mammoth's tusks appear to have had a wider curvature 

 (Fig. 3) than those of existing elephants ; and probably, like the Afri- 

 can species, both male and female mammoths possessed these great 

 teeth. The measurement of mammoth tusks from recent dejDosits in 



