THE ELEPHANT 125 



and that the wolves and bears were eating the flesh, which 

 had been frozen for untold ages and perfectly preserved. 

 Upon the fifth visit he secured the tusks and brought 

 them south. Seven years after this a Mr. Adams visited 

 the spot and secured the long mane, much of the wool, 

 and one of the eyes, which is now in St. Petersburg and 

 in nearly as good condition as though taken from a freshly 

 killed elephant. 



Several skeletons have been found in England, also in 

 France ; but the great burying ground of these monsters 

 was upon the borders of the Arctic Ocean. So many have 

 been found on the New Siberian Islands that their collec- 

 tion for years has constituted an important and productive 

 business. One of the most interesting finds was made 

 by a Russian engineer named Benkendorf, in 1846. The 

 spring of that year was very warm, and the thaw washed 

 out new channels on the Indigirka and carried away banks 

 that had stood for ages. While rowing up one of these 

 new channels he discovered a mammoth just washed out 

 of a frozen tundra. He says : *' A black, horrible, giant- 

 like mass was thrust out of the water, and we beheld a 

 colossal elephant's head armed with mighty tusks, with its 

 long trunk moving in the water in an unearthly manner." 

 The men immediately seized the mammoth and fastened 

 it to the shore with chains and ropes, and for several days 

 examined it. "Picture to yourself," says the finder, "an 

 elephant with a body covered with thick fur, about thirteen 

 feet in height and fifteen in length, with tusks eight feet 

 long, thick and curved outward at the ends, a stout trunk 

 of six feet in length, colossal limbs of one and a half feet 

 in thickness, and a tail naked up to the end, which was 



