AUTOPSY OF AN ELEPHANT. 229 



served in the ices of Siberia. An ivory hunter by 

 the name of Schumachoff, while looking along the 

 shores of lake Oncoul for mammoth tusks in 1803, 

 came across the carcass of an Elephas Primigenius 

 which was being gnawed by dogs, wolves, and bears, 

 so fresh and well kept was the flesh. The remains 

 were afterward taken to St. Petersburg, and mounted. 

 The skin was thickly covered with a dense wool, 

 through which projected long black hairs or bristles. 

 This protective covering shows conclusively that the 

 animal was accustomed to a very cold climate, and 

 does away with the theory that a tropical climate 

 once extended to the neighborhood of the Polar 

 regions ; and that a change of temperature occurred 

 so suddenly that elephants then abounding in high 

 latitudes w r ere instantly overwhelmed with cold, and 

 became encased in perpetual ice. It is possible that 

 Siberia is now too cold for the mammoth, yet as far 

 North as its remains are found there are pines, wil- 

 lows, and birches upon which the creature might 

 feed ; and its thick and complex coat of wool and 

 hair would enable the animal to live in as high lati- 

 tudes as the musk ox which thrives in British America. 

 The mastodon was nearly as large as the mam- 

 moth, and they were contemporaries, though the former 

 kept pretty closely to temperate climates. Nipple shaped 

 cusps on the grinders gave the creature the name of 

 mastodon. The tusks of the animal sometimes meas- 

 ured fourteen feet from tip to base; and they curved 

 more gently than they did in the mammoth. The 

 cabinet of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History 

 contains some fine specimens of mammoth and mas- 

 todon tusks that were excavated from alluvial soil 

 near Big Bone Springs, in Kentucky. Similar relics 



