358 MAN AS THE COTEMPORARY OF THE MAMMOTH 



profuse crinosity of the neck and head. The hison or aurochs therefore flourished 

 liere in companionship with man, the horse, and the reindeer. Another figure, 

 which unfortunately is mutilated, l>ut is distinguished by the fineness of its liair, 

 seems to point to another of the bovine species difiering from the bison ; nor is 

 this a matter of surprise, since the testimony of the bones is to the same eiFect. 

 An animal of the goat kind, probably the steinbock, is not wanting, while some 

 other figures" of horned and graminivorous species must be acknowledged to be 

 deficient in point of distinctness. 



The most remarkable relic, however, is the representation of tlie primeval 

 elephant, a real mammoth, on a plate o'f ivory, wdach formed part of a tusk of 

 large dimensions. In May, 1846, M. Lartet, in company with Dr. Falconer and 

 Verneuil, both well-known naturalists, caused excavations to l)e made in the 

 stratum of the cavern of the Madelaine. ''At the moment of om- arrival," says 

 Lartet, " the laborers disinteiTed five fragments of a rather thick plate of ivory, 

 which must have been detached, ages before, from a large tusk. After having 

 fitted the pieces together by their corresponding edges, I pointed out to Dr. Fal- 

 coner numerous scratches and lines somewhat deeply engraved, which, on collo- 

 cation, constituted an animal figure. The practiced eye of the distinguished 

 paleontologist, better versed than any one else in the study of elephantine ani- 

 mals, at once recognized the head of an elephant. He then directed our atten- 

 tion to the other parts of the bod}^, and especially to certain tufted lines in the 

 region of the neck, denoting the characteristic mane of the mammoth or elephant 

 of the glacial era. It is generally known that this peculiarity which marks 

 the arctic habitat of the animal, was verified, in the year 17* 9, by Adams, a 

 member of the Academy of St. Petersburg, in the carcass of such an elephant, 

 found imbedded in ice near the mouth of the Lena. A bunch of its hair is still 

 to be seen in the geological collection of the Garden of Plants at Paris. 



" I have shown the ])iece in question to competent observers, sucli as Milne 

 Edwards, de Quatrefages, Desnoyers Longperier, and Franks, director of the 

 London Antiquarian Collection ; and the latter has, by means of tlie pencil, 

 rendered the characteristic lines more distinct in the plaster cast which had been 

 taken of the object. 



'' This new fact only tends to strengthen the conviction already accjuired of 

 the existence of man at the same time with the mammoth and the other large 

 graminivorous and carnivorous beasts which, according to the geologists, lived 

 in the first section of the quaternary period. The truth of this historical fact 

 results from so many concurrent observations and from material facts of snch plain 

 import, that even the most prejudiced cannot fail to recognize its entire validity, 

 if they Vvill permit themselves to see and judge with ordinary conscientiousness." 



The elephant, thickly clad with hair on the neck, forehead, and breast, is seen 

 in profile and at its full length in the act of striding forward. At first it was 

 not rightly known what was to be made of a tuft of hair and certain marks which are 

 seen to the left in advance of the line which forms the prolile of the forehead. 

 Repeated and closer scrutiny of the fragment has enabled us, in the end, to 

 recognize therein the eye, the outline of the forehead, together with the prol)oscis 

 of a second elephant, which is advancing close by the side of the first. Some 

 lines on the leg would lead us to conjecture a third elephant, wliich followed on 

 the part of the plate which is broken off. The drawing of the figures is exe- 

 cuted with a free and l)old hand, and the characteristic movement of the elephant, 

 which raises sinuiltaneously the legs of the same side, is well preserved. 



Another memorial of the art of this ancient epoch is an elephant's head carved 

 on a reindeer's horn, which was also discovered in Perigord by the Marquis de 

 Vibraye. These two relics are the more interesting as furnishing the proof that 

 man actually existed as the cotemporary of the mammoth or gigantic elephant, a 

 fact which has been so often and so obstinately contested. But since the locali- 

 ties where these objects of primitive art have been found unquestionably belong 



