THE TRUTH ABOUT THE MAMMOTH. 



By Frederic A. Lucas. 



[P'.ditor's Note. — In the October number of McClure's Magazine was published a 

 short story, "The killing of the mammoth," by H. Tukeman, which, to the amaze- 

 ment of the editors, was taken by many readers not as fiction, but as a contribution 

 to natural history. Ever since the api^earance of that number of the magazine the 

 authorities of the Smithsonian Institution, in which the author had located the 

 remains of the beast of his fancy, have been beset with visitors to see the stuffed 

 mammoth, and our daily mail, as well as that of the Smithsonian Institution, has 

 been filled with inquiries for more information and for requests to settle wagers as to 

 whether it was a true story or not. The contribution in question was printed purely 

 as fiction, with no idea of misleading the public, and was entitled a story in our table 

 of contents. We doubt if any writer of realistic fiction ever had a more general and 

 convincing proof of success. The very general interest that has been shown in the 

 subject has convinced us that our readers would be glad to know the truth about the 

 mammoth, and accordingly we have asked Mr. F. A. Lucas, of the National IMuseum, 

 to prepare the following article. If the mammoth, as Mr. Lucas knows him, is less 

 in size and belongs to an earlier date than the mammoth as Mr. Tukeman painted 

 him, we believe our readers will find him no less interesting.] 



About three centuries ago, in 1696, a Russian, one Ludloff by name, 

 described some bones belonging to what the Tartars called a ' ' mamantu;" 

 later on, Blumenbach pressed the common name into scientific use as 

 "mammut," and Cuvier gallicized this into "mammouth," whence by 

 an easy transition we get our familiar " mammoth." We are so accus- 

 tomed to use the word to describe anything of remarkable size that it 

 would be only natural to suppose that the name ^'mammoth" was given 

 to the extinct elephant because of its extraordinary bulk. Exactly the 

 reverse of this is true, however, for the word came to have its present 

 meaning because the original possessor of the name was a huge animal. 

 The Siberian peasants called the creature "mamantu," or ''ground- 

 dweller," because they believed it to be a gigantic mole, passing its 

 life beneath the ground and perishing when by any accident it saw the 

 light. The reasoning that led to this belief was very simple and the 

 logic very good; no one had ever seen a live mamantu, but there were 

 plenty of its bones lying at or near the surface; consequently, if the 

 animal did not live above the grouud, it must dwell below. 



1 Reprinted, with permission, from McClure's Magazine for February, 1900. 

 SM 99 23 ^^ 



