366 MAMMOTH IVORY. 



Nordenskiolcl in 1875 having a cargo of over 100. About the year 

 1840 Dr. Middendorff, who visited the country, estimated that the 

 annual output of Siberian ivory reached 110,000 pounds, representing 

 at least a hundred individual mammoths, so that the total number 

 of animals whose remains have been exported since the conquest of 

 Siberia must be between 20,000 and 30,000. And since Middendorff's 

 estimate probably errs on the side of being too low, the numbers may 

 have been considerably in excess of this. 



In the London market, according to Mr. Westendarp, 1,635 mam- 

 moth tusks were sold during the year 18^2 and 1,14J) in the following 

 year, the weight of these varying from 140 to 160 pounds each. Only 

 a small percentage of these were, however, tit for the turner of, ivory 

 of high quality, about 14 per cent being of the best description, 17 

 per cent of inferioi- quality ])ut still useful, while 54 per cent were 

 bad, and the remaining 15 per cent rotten and worthless. 



According to Dr. Trouessart, the price of mammoth ivoiy in the 

 market at Yakutsk is 25 francs per pud for the highest <{iiality, 17^ 

 francs for the second, and from 5 to 7 francs for the third quality, A 

 small quantity is worked up locally into ornamental and fancy articles 

 of various kinds; but this industiy seems to be a waning one, and 

 more and more of the raw material goes direct to the foreign mai'ket. 

 Yakutsk, which is situated on the Lena about midway between 'ts 

 mouth and the frontier of China and has about 5,000 inhabitants, has 

 long been the acknowledged center of the trade, but it is considered 

 probable that at present the great bulk of the ivory goes to China and 

 that only a comparatively small portion finds its way into the more 

 distant markets of Europe. The opening up of the country by the 

 Siberian railway may, however, lead to a revolution in this respect 

 and also inaugurate a new era of prosperity for Yakutsk and the other 

 Siberian towns. 



With regard to the future development of the trade and the persist- 

 ence of the supply it may be remarked that only a small portion of 

 Siberia has hitherto been explored at all, and that other deposits 

 remain to be discovered. Of those already worked, Dr. Trouessart 

 writes as follows: 



"It is difficult to believe that the enormous quantity of tusks 

 indicated by the masses of bones spoken of ])y travelers who have 

 visited the archipelagos of northern Siberia can have been accunmlated 

 in the course of only a few centuries. It is most probable that only 

 the surface of these vast bone deposits has hitherto })een exploited, 

 and that by excavating the soil to a greater depth, and, if necessary, 

 employing the aid of dynamite to break up the frozen strata, good 

 results will be obtained. 



"If this idea be well founded, and if, as is unfortunately only too 

 prol)able, the supply of African ivory comes pi-actically to an end at 

 no very distant date, there is every hope of finding a precious reserve 

 in the fossil ivory of Siberia." 



