THE ELEPHANT 255 



young, various colossal species roamed over the greater 

 part of Europe, Northern Asia, and America. Fossil 

 remains of the extinct Elephant, usually known as the 

 Mammoth, have been dug up in England, in various parts 

 of the Continent, and have been dredged up from the bed 

 of the North Sea. But it is evident that Siberia at one time 

 possessed as many Elephants, as ever did Africa before the 

 incessant hunting for ivory caused the animal to disappear 

 from many of the regions where it once roamed. Embedded 

 in the ice in the north of Asia have been found the remains 

 of Elephants with large curving tusks far exceeding in size 



SKELETON OF THE MAMMOTH. 



those of the present day. So often did these remains come 

 to light that quite a large trade sprang up in fossil ivory, 

 as it was called. In one year (1873) no less than eleven 

 hundred tusks were imported into England ; and it was 

 calculated that within a score of years the remains of quite 

 twenty thousand mammoths must have been discovered. 



The mammoth remains are a puzzle alike to the naturalist 

 and the geologist. Some of the frozen monsters have con- 

 sisted of entire animals, with the flesh, even to the eyes, so 

 well preserved that the Yakut dogs devour it with avidity ; 

 and in the mouth of the mammoth are sometimes found 

 the very twigs upon which it was feeding when death over- 



