THE MAMMOTH. 449 



exposed. But it was not until the fifth year from its discovery, 

 when the ice had melted sooner than usual, that the enormous animal 

 became entirely detached from the bank or cliff in which it was first 

 observed, and came thundering down upon a sand-bank below. In 

 the month of March 1804, the fisherman extracted the tusks, which 

 were nine feet six inches long, and together weighed 360 pounds, and 

 sold them at Yakoutsk for fifty roubles. Two years afterwards, Mr. 

 Adams, a traveller, visited the animal, and found it much-mutilated. 

 The Yakoutes residing in the neighbourhood had cut away the flesh 

 to feed their dogs ; wild beasts had also eaten a great quantity of it. 

 Nevertheless, with the exception of a fore-leg, the skeleton was entire ; 

 the other bones being still held together by ligaments and portions of 

 skin. The head was covered with dried skin ; one of the ears was 

 entire, and furnished with a tuft of hairs ; the pupil of the eye was 

 still to be distinguished ; the brain was in the skull, but somewhat 

 dried ; the lower lip had been gnawed by animals, the upper one was 

 entirely gone, and the teeth were consequently exposed ; the neck 

 was furnished with a long mane ; the skin was covered with long 

 hair and a reddish wool ; the portion of skin still remaining was so 

 heavy that two men could scarcely carry it ; according to Mr. Adams, 

 more than thirty pounds' weight of hair and wool was collected from 

 the wet sand into which it had been trodden by the white bears 

 while devouring the flesh. This skeleton is now preserved in the 

 Museum of the Academy of St. Petersburg. The height of the 

 creature is about nine feet, and its extreme length to the tip of the 

 tail about sixteen feet. 



A second carcass was afterwards discovered on the bank of the 

 Asalei'a, which empties its waters into the Frozen Sea, by the 

 traveller Sarytcheff. It was standing upright, and wholly covered 

 with its skin and fur. Finally, a third has been recently found 

 in the same region, and the Museum at Paris possesses a portion 

 of its skin, with a tuft of wool, and some relics of the mane. 



The Mammoth, therefore, would seem to be a link connecting the 

 past and the present worlds, a being whose body has outlived its 



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