THE MAMMOTH 147 



the mammoth, but that the existing elephant of Asia is 

 a very near relative, certainly as near as a first cousin, 

 possibly a very great grandson. Popularly, the mam- 

 moth is supposed to have been a colossus somewhere 

 from twelve to twenty feet in height, beside whom mod- 

 ern elephants would seem insignificant; but as "trout 

 lose much in dressing," so mammoths shrink in measur- 

 ing, and while there were doubtless Jumbos among them 

 in the way of individuals of exceptional magnitude, the 

 majority were decidedly under Jumbo's size, averaging 

 no larger in fact than a good-sized Indian Elephant, or 

 from nine to ten feet high. Our own mammoth from 

 Indiana stands as mounted, ten feet six inches 

 at the shoulders, but the restored leg bones are 

 admittedly too long. This applies to the mammoth 

 par excellence, the species known scientifically as Elephas 

 primigenius, whose remains are found in many parts of 

 the Northern Hemisphere and occur abundantly in 

 Siberia and Alaska. There were other elephants than 

 the mammoth, and some that exceeded him in size, 

 notably Elephas antiquus of southern Europe, and 

 Elephas imperator of our Southern and Western States, 

 but even the largest cannot positively be asserted to 

 have exceeded a height of thirteen feet. Tusks offer 

 convenient terms of comparison, and those of an aver- 

 age fully grown mammoth are from eight to ten feet in 

 length; those of the famous St. Petersburg specimen 

 measuring nine feet three inches. So far as the writer is 

 aware, the largest tusks actually measured are two from 

 Alaska, one twelve feet ten inches long, weighing 190 

 pounds, reported by Mr. Jay Beach; and another 

 eleven feet long, weighing 200 pounds, noted by Mr. 

 T. L. Brevig. Compared with these we have the big 

 tusk that used to stand on Fulton Street, New York, 

 just an inch under nine feet long, and weighing 184 



