124 THE ELEPHANT 



elephant. With the mastodon and the elephant {Elephas 

 Americanus, referred to as having been found near San 

 Juan Capistrano, California), it roamed in Quaternary times 

 in what is now the United States. 



The mammoth was confined to the north. It affected 

 colder regions than the others, and was probably as com- 

 mon there as the musk ox is at present. It was a huge, 

 impressive beast, with colossal tusks thirteen or fourteen 

 feet in length, curved in a remarkable manner upward and 

 outward. Each of these tusks weighed several hundred 

 pounds. As a protection from the cold, this king of all 

 the elephants had a thick coat of hair, some of which can 

 now be seen in the museum at St. Petersburg. The hair 

 was of three kinds. First and next to the skin was a coat 

 of reddish wool ; over this was a layer of long, reddish 

 hair ; and upon the neck grew a thick, heavy mane. 



Several specimens of the mammoth have been discov- 

 ered in the frozen tundras of Siberia as well preserved as 

 though the animal had died yesterday ; and if appliances 

 had been at hand a perfect mammoth, perhaps millions 

 of years old, could have been secured. The discoveries 

 have all been sensational and have created great interest. 

 One of the first was found by a poor fisherman in the 

 mouth of the River Lena, in Siberia. He first saw the 

 huge tusks protruding from the ice and frozen earth. 

 When he returned southward in winter he told the story, 

 but was not believed. Perhaps the discoverer and others 

 thought it but another tyn-schu killed in its burrow. In 

 the following spring Schumarhoff visited it again and 

 found it more exposed, and again told the story. The 

 third year he found that it had rolled out upon the sand, 



