96 On the Mammolh. 



very abundant in that country, and in many other parts of the world, 

 and it is so used by writers on the Continent. ' These remains, wherever 

 found, belong to a species of elephant different from the two now 

 living on the globe, and which is called by Cuvier " the Fossil Ele- 

 phant:" but the propriety of applying the term /o««7 to the subject of 

 the following memoir may perhaps be doubted ; for although it is of the 

 same species, it was not found beneath the surface of the earth, but in 

 ice, and retained its flesh and all its softer parts in a state of perfect 

 freshness. 

 A very complete dissertation on the fossil and living elephants, by M. 

 Cuvier, is inserted in the eighth volume of the Annales du Musdum 

 d'Histoire Naturelle, and has been re-publiahed in his Recherches sur les 

 Ossemens fossiles de QuadrupMesJ] 



According to several writers, the term Mammoth is of 

 Tartar origin, and is derived from mama, which signifies the 

 earth*, and the natives of Siberia give the name of " bones of 

 the Mammoth" to the remains of elephants which are found 

 in great abundance in that country, believing that the Mammoth 

 is an animal which lives underground at the present time. 



The Mammoth, or elephant's bones and tusks, are found 

 throughout Russia, and more particularly in Eastern Siberia and 

 the Arctic marshes. The tusks are found in great quantities^ 

 and are collected for the sake of profit, being sold to the turners 

 in the place of the living ivory of Ai'rica and the warmer parts 

 of Asia, to which it is not at all inferior. 



Almost the whole of the ivory-turners' work made in Russia 

 is from the Siberian fossil ivory, and sometimes the tusks, 

 having hitherto always been found in abundance, are exported 

 rom thence, being less in price than the recent. Although, for 

 a long series of years, very many thousands have been annually 

 obtained, yet they are still collected every year in great numbers 

 on the banks of the larger rivers of the Russian empire, and 

 more particularly those of further Siberia. They abound most 

 of all in the Laichovian Isles and on the shores of the Frozen Sea. 



* According to others, it is derived from lehemolh, mentioned inthe book 

 of Job ; or mehemoth, an epithet which the Arabs commonly add to the 

 word Elephant, to designate one which is very large. See Cuvier, Ann. du 

 DIus. vol, 8, p. 45, 



