THE MAMMOTH 157 



REFERENCES. 



The mounted skeleton of the mammoth in the American Mu- 

 seum of Natural History is the only one on exhibition in the 

 United States, although almost every museum has teeth or odd 

 bones of the animal. Remains of the mammoth are common 

 enough but, save in Alaska, they are usually in a poor state of 

 preservation or consist of isolated bones or teeth. A great many 

 more or less complete skeletons of mammoth and some fine skulls 

 have been found by gold miners in Alaska, and with proper care 

 some of these could undoubtedly have been secured. Naturally, 

 however, the miners' do not feel like taking the time and trouble 

 to exhume bones whose value is uncertain, while the cost of 

 transportation precludes the bringing out of many specimens. 



Some reports of mammoths have been based on the bones of 

 whales, including a skull that was figured in the daily papers. 



The tusk obtained by Mr. Beach and mentioned in the text 

 still holds the record for mammoth tusks. The greatest develop- 

 ment of tusks occurred in Elephas ganesa, a species found in 

 Pliocene deposits of the Siwalik Hills, India. This species 

 appears not to have exceeded the existing elephant in bulk, but 

 the tusks are twelve feet nine inches long, and two feet two inches 

 in circumference. How the animal ever carried them is a 

 mystery, both on account of their size and their enormous leverage. 

 The persistence of error is well shown by the many restorations 

 of Mammoth and Mastodon in which the tusks are represented 

 as curving outwards. This probably came about through the 

 transposition of the tusks in the St. Petersburg specimen and 

 this in turn was not unlikely due to the fact that the mounter 

 thought that they ought to be different from those of existing 

 elephants. The error was perpetuated in the restorations in the 

 first edition of "Animals of the Past," though shortly after the 

 publication of the book Mr. Knight's suspicions were aroused 

 and these soon became certainties that the tusks were transposed. 

 As for teeth, an upper grinder of Elephas columbi in the United 

 States National Museum is ten and one-half inches high, nine 

 inches wide, the grinding face being eight by five inches. This 

 tooth, which is unusually perfect, retaining the outer covering of 

 cement, came from Afton, Indian Territory, and weighs a little 

 over fifteen pounds. The lower tooth, shown in Fig. 38, is twelve 

 inches long, and the grinding face is nine by three and one-half 

 inches; this is also from Elephas columbi. Grinders of the 



