182 ANIMALS OF THE PAST 



inches long, and weighed 176 pounds. The 

 largest, most beautiful tusks, probably, ever 

 seen in this country were a pair brought from 

 Zanzibar and displayed by Messrs. Tiffany & 

 Company in 1900. The measurements and 

 weights of these were as follows : length along 

 outer curve, ten feet and three-fourths of an 

 inch, circumference one foot, eleven inches, 

 weight, 224 pounds ; length along outer curve, 

 ten feet, three and one-half inches, circumfer- 

 ence two feet and one-fourth of an inch, weight, 

 239 pounds. 



For our knowledge of the external appear- 

 ance of the mammoth we are indebted to the 

 more or less entire examples which have been 

 found at various times in Siberia, but mainly 

 to the noted specimen found in 1799 near the 

 Lena, embedded in the ice, where it had been 

 reposing, so geologists tell us, anywhere from 

 10,000 to 50,000 years. How the creature 

 gradually thawed out of its icy tomb, and the 

 tusks were taken by the discoverer and sold 

 for ivory ; how the dogs fed upon the flesh in 

 summer, while bears and wolves feasted upon 

 it in winter; how the animal was within an 



