CHAPTEE XXVIII 



THE ANIMALS OF THE PAST 



332. Extinct animals The mammoth. The animals alive 

 to-day are but the merest fraction of all that have been. 

 New species of animals long since vanished from the face 

 of the earth are continually being discovered. Notable 

 among fossilized remains are those of the mammoth, an 

 enormous elephant, specimens of which, not even decayed, 

 have been found frozen in the ice of northern Siberia. 

 Some of the specimens discovered were complete with skele- 

 ton, flesh, and hair. Its like exists no longer. It resembled 

 an elephant much more than any other kind of living ani- 

 mal, but it was twice the bulk and weight of the largest 



FIG. 242. Rough drawing of a mammoth, on its own ivory, by "a contemporary man. 

 After LE CONTB. 



living elephant and a third taller. Its body was covered 

 in places with a brownish wool, in others with long hair. 

 Bones and other remains of many mammoths have been 



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