274 EXTINCT MONSTERS 



elephants have, on account of their great size (and partly from 

 a certain resemblance, in some, to bones of the human skeleton), 

 been regarded as testifying to the former existence of giants, 

 heroes, and demigods. To the present day the Hindoos consider 

 such remains as belonging to the Eakshas, or Titans, beings that 

 figure largely in their ancient writings. Theophrastus, of Lesbos, 

 a pupil of Aristotle, appears to have been the first to record the 

 discovery of fossil ivory and bones. These were probably obtained 

 by the country people from certain deposits in the neighbourhood, 

 and are mentioned five hundred years later by Pausanias. Several 

 Greek legends and traditions appear to be founded on such 

 discoveries. 



We will now put before the reader the true accounts given by 

 Adams. 1 



In 1799 a Tungusian, named Schumachoff, who generally 

 went to hunt and fish at the peninsula of Tamut after the 

 fishing season of the Lena was over, had constructed for his 

 wife some cabins on the banks of the lake Oncoul, and had 

 embarked to seek along the coasts for Mammoth tusks. One 

 day he saw among the blocks of ice a shapeless mass, but did 

 not then discover what it was. In 1800 he perceived that this 

 object was more disengaged from the ice, and that it had two 

 projecting parts ; and towards the end of the summer of 1801 

 the entire side of the animal and one of his tusks were quite 

 free from ice. In 1803 the enormous mass fell by its own 

 weight on a bank of sand. It was a frozen Mammoth ! In 1804 

 Schumachoff came to his Mammoth, and having cut off the 

 tusks, exchanged them with a merchant for goods. Two years 

 afterwards Mr. Adams, the narrator of the story, traversed these 



1 Abridged from Memoirs of the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. 

 Petersburg, vol. v. London, 1819. 



