AN ENGKAVED PIECE OP ELEPHANT'S TUSK. 



207 



hair characteristic of the Mammoth, or Elephant of the Glacial Period*. We 

 know that this specific peculiarity, indicative of the subarctic habitat of an animal 

 of this genus, had been verified, in 1799, by Mr. Adams, of the Academy of Saint- 

 Petersburg, by the remains of a carcass of the same kind of Elephant (Elephas 

 primigenins) imbedded, flesh and bone, in the ice near the mouth of the Lena. 

 In the Geological Gallery of the Museum a tuft of the long hair of this Mammoth 

 can be seen t- 



" Not wishing, in accordance with the rule we had laid down, to publish this 

 discovery previously to confirmation by analogous observations J, I merely showed 

 the specimens to some persons of competent judgment. I may mention, among 

 others, Messrs, de Quatrefages, Desnoyers, and de Longpe"rier, who, together with 

 yourself, have examined it with the most scrupulous attention ; also Mr. A. W. 

 Franks, Director of the Society of Antiquaries of London, who has taken the 

 trouble to examine the cast, and to blacken with pencil the more definite lines of 

 carving, and the more characteristic forms which he can distinguish by means of 

 them. It is therefore, in reality, the opinion of these eminent scientific men, 

 including Dr. Falconer and yourself, that is produced before the Academy, rather 

 than my own. 



" This new fact will not, indeed, add any thing to already acquired convictions 

 as to the coexistence of Man with the fossil Elephant (Elephas primigenius) 

 and other great Herbivores and Carnivores which geologists regard as having 

 lived together in the earlier phases of the Quaternary Period. This truth of retro- 



* " On the cast there is, in the lines descending from the summit of the head, a gap corresponding to a 

 transverse crack filled up by cement in the original." 



t [Portions of the hide, with its coat of black bristly hair, 15 inches long, shorter hair of a fawn colour, 

 and reddish-brown wool, are preserved also in the Natural-History Museum at St. Petersburg, and in the 

 British and Hunterian Museums, London. EDIT. KEL. AQ.] 



t [Another indication of the Aborigines of Perigord being acquainted with the Elephant or Mammoth is 

 shown by the carved head of an Elephant, which was once the butt-end of an ornamented Antler (" Baton 

 de commandement " or " Pogamagan "), from Laugerie Basse (Dordogne), in the collection of the Marquis 

 de Vibraye. See ' Materiaux pour 1'Histoire de 1'Homme,' vol. iii. p. 206 ; vol. iv. p. 465. 



A far less definite indication is an obscure outline of what M. Elie Massenat regards as the head and 

 trunk of an Elephant, cut on a piece of smooth bone from the same Station. ' Materiaux ' &c. vol. v. p. 354, 

 pi. 22. fig. 2. 



That the neighbouring people, probably of the same race, who left their remains at Bruniquel (Tarn-et- 

 Garonne), personally knew the Elephant, is proved by the figure of that animal carved out of the palm of a 

 Reindeer Antler as the handle of a poniard, found at Bruniquel, and in the Collection of M. Peccadeau de 

 1'Isle. See ' B-evue Archeologique ' for March 1868 ; and ' Materiaux ' &c. vol. iii. p. 206, and vol. iv. p. 9", 

 fig. 32. EDIT. KEL. Aa.] 



