The Glacial Period and the Mammoth 23 



writer that in a museum maintained at the Hudson Bay Company's 

 post at Fort Simpson on the Mackenzie River he observed teeth of 

 the mammoth {E. primigcniiis). These specimens have no definite 

 locaHties assigned them, but it is presumed they were found in the 

 region of the lower Mackenzie Valley. 



In this connection it appears opportune to call attention to a 

 fact that apparently has been lost sight of by recent observers on the 

 ethnology of the Alaskan Eskimo. This is the use by these people 

 of a blue pigment derived from the decomposition of mammoth 

 tusks. Sir John Richardson makes a note of this in his work on the 

 Zoology of the Voyage of H. M. S. Herald, 1854; page 61, he says: 

 " Several of the mammoths' tusks also have exfoliated, and a beauti- 

 ful blue phosphate of iron has formed between their plates. This 

 is evidently the blue pigment used by the native tribes on the coasts 

 of Beering's Sea, and which has passed from tribe to tribe by barter 

 in small quantities as far as the banks of the Mackenzie. It is 

 mentioned by Cook, but its origin was unknown until now. Dr. 

 Davy had the kindness to analyze this substance at my request, and 

 he found that the first portions I sent to him were accompanied by 

 a greater proportion of carbonate of lime than a recent tusk should 

 contain. The iron may have been derived from the red gravel bed, 

 associated with the bones ;****** Having sent a second 

 specimen of a decaying tusk to Dr. Davy, he says, ' It is stained by 

 peroxide of iron without any phosphate. I cannot find in it any 

 mass of carbonate of lime. The proportion of animal matter in it 

 is large, sufficient to preserve the form of the fragment after the 

 removal of the phosphate of lime by an acid. Probably complicated 

 affinities are engaged in the production of the blue phosphate, and 

 carbonate of iron is concerned (not carbonate of lime). Perhaps 

 the protoxide of the carbonate may combine with the phosphoric 

 acid of the bone (ivory), and the carbonic acid of the former with 

 the lime of the latter ; the animal matter present in the bone in clay 

 preventing the higher degree of oxidation.' " 



IV. The Glacial Period and the Mammoth 



I. RUSSELL QUOTED 



Without entering into a discussion of the geologic time limits of 

 the mammoth in Alaska it is well to note the facts in regard to its 

 geographic range and that of the great glaciers. I. C. Russell " is 



" Notes on the Surface Geology of Alaska. Bull. Geol. Soc. America. Vol. 

 I, 1890, p. 123. 



