1x “CORNES DE LICORNE” 227 
How primeval man, with his inferior weapons, slew the 
Mammoth is not easy to understand; but that they were con- 
temporaneous is clearly shown by associated remains, and by the 
notorious sketch of the Mammoth on a piece of its own ivory, in 
which curved tusks and a forehead lke that of an Indian Elephant 
are plainly to be seen. Although it was only so recently as the 
year 1799 that an example of this great creature was actually 
studied on the spot, and removed to St. Petersburg, the existence 
of Mammoths and of ivory is a matter of much more ancient 
knowledge. M. Trouessart relates’ that fossil ivory was known 
to the Greeks. Theophrastus spoke of ivory imbedded in the 
soil, and the tusks were recovered by the Chinese. It is a curious 
fact that the Chinese described and figured the Mammoth as a 
kind of gigantic Rat. The likeness between the elephantine molar 
and that of Rodents has been commented upon; but the existence 
of its tusks below the level of the ground led the Chinese Natural 
Historians to consider that the ways of life of the Mammoth were 
those of the Mole. As to the carcases themselves, the Chinese 
said that the flesh was cold, but very healthy to eat. This 
expression can hardly be explained, except upon the view that 
fresh carcases were known to that people long before they were 
known to us of the Western world. The value of the Mammoth 
ivory was known to antiquity; the famous Haroun-al-Raschid 
gave to King Charlemagne not only a pair of living Elephants, 
but a “horn of Licorne,’ which seems undoubtedly to have been 
a name for the tusks of the Mammoth. For in an account of the 
sacred treasures of Saint Denis, published in the year 1646, the 
author states this to be the fact. 
The causes of the disappearance of the Mammoth are not easy 
to understand. Some held that it was a naked animal hke the 
existing Elephants, and that the lowering of the temperature in 
Siberia proved fatal; it is, of course, now certain that it was 
clothed with dense woolly hair. Along with the bogged corpses 
of the great pachyderm, numerous trunks of pine-trees have been 
found, together with associated remains of other animals now 
extinct in that neighbourhood. Thus it is plain that Siberia was 
once covered by mighty forests, through which the Mammoth 
roamed. The decay of these forests, upon whose branches the 
Elephant fed, as is attested by the remains of pine leaves found 
1 Bull. Soc. Nat. d’ Acclimat. xlv. 1898, p. 41. 
