48 THE MAMMOTH. 



along the banks for the fossil ivory, and in the winter are 

 followed by numerous caravans, all the convoys drawn by 

 dogs, and return with tusks of the mammoth, each weigh- 

 ing from one hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds. 

 This fossil ivory is sent to China and Europe, where it is 

 employed for the same purposes as the ivory of the living 

 elephant, and is often equally as good. In 1844 sixteen 

 thousand pounds were sold in St. Petersburg alone. Al- 

 though this ivory has been exported to China for the last 

 five hundred years, and to Europe over one hundred years, 

 yet the supply appears to be undiminished. According to 

 Tilesius, there are enough bones still left in Korthern Rus- 

 sia to greatly exceed in number those of all the elephants 

 now living on the globe. 



IV. HISTORY. 



In nearly all ages and countries chance discoveries have 

 been made of fossil bones of the elephant. That all these 

 are to be ascribed to the mammoth is improbable, but 

 many of them doubtless belonged to that animal. Fossil 

 ivory was discovered in the soil of Greece as early as 320 

 B.. C. The fossil bones of the elephant family when first 

 discovered were ascribed either to human beings or else 

 the demi-gods. The patella of a fossil elephant found in 

 Greece was taken for the knee-bone of Ajax; the remains, 

 thirteen feet in length, discovered by the Spartans at 

 Tegea, were assigned to the bod}^ of Orestes ; those, eight- 

 een feet in length, discovered in the Isle of Ladea, were 

 assigned to Asterius, son of Ajax; the bones discovered 

 in the fourth century at Trapani, in Sicily, were ascribed 

 to the pretended body of Polyphemus. So numerous were 

 the discoveries, and so universally regarded to be those 

 of human beings, that the literature of the middle ages, on 

 this subject, is quite voluminous, and has been entitled 

 " Gigantology." 



