REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 39 



1890, in which, referring U) the hi.stor\' of .siiiiihir attempts, 

 he said: 



•' In the early part of this century u naturalist traveling- in 

 Siberia stood by the mutilated body of a maumioth still unde- 

 cayed, which the melting of the frozen gravel had reveaU^d, 

 and to the skeleton of which large portions of flesh, skin, and 

 hair still clung. The remains were excavated and transported 

 many hundred miles across the frozen waste, and at last reached 

 the Imperial Museum at St. Petersburg, where, through all 

 these years, the mounted skeleton has justly been regarded as 

 the greatest treasure of that magniticent collection. 



"Scientific memoirs, popular books, theological works, 

 poems — in short, a whole literature — has come into existence 

 with this discovery as its text. No other event in all the his- 

 tory of such sul)jects has excited a greater or more permanent 

 interest outside of purely scientific circles; for the resurrec- 

 tion of this relic of a geologic time in a condition analogous 

 to that in which the bodies of contemporaneous animals are 

 daily seen brings home to the mind of the least curious observer 

 the reality of a long extinct race with a vividness which no 

 fossils or petrifactions of the ordinary sort can possibly equal. 



•* Now, I am assured by most competent naturalists that fcAv. 

 if any, of those not particularly devoted to the study of Ameri- 

 can animals realize that changes have already occurred or are 

 on the point of taking place in our own characteristic fauna 

 compared with w^hich the disappearance from it of the mam- 

 moth was insigniticant. That animal was common to all 

 northern lands in its dav. The practical domestication of 

 the elephant gives to everyone the opportunity of oliserving 

 a gigantic creature closely allied to the manunoth, and from 

 which he ma}" gain an approximately correct idea of it. But 

 no such example is at hand in the case of the bison, the 

 prong-horn antelope, the elk, the Kocky Mountain goat, and 

 many more of our vanishing races. 



''The student of even the most modern text-books learns that 

 the characteristic larger animals of the United States are those 

 just mentioned, with the moose, the grizzly bear, the beaver, 

 and if we include marine forms and arctic American animals 

 we may add the northern fur seal, the Pacitic walrus, the 

 Californian sea elephant, the manatee, and still others. 



" With one or two exceptions out of this long list, men now 

 living can remember wdien each of these animals was reason- 

 ably abundant within its natural territor}'. It is within the 

 bounds of moderation to affirm that unless Congress places 

 some check on the present rate of destruction there are men 

 now living who will see the time when the animals enumerated 

 will be practical!}' extinct, or exterminated within the limits 



