102 Natural Htftory of the Ancients. 



traders frequenting the borderlands of Siberia, 

 and probably firft initiating the trade in foffil 

 ivory throughout the Weft. There is every pro- 

 bability that the very name " mammoth," as well 

 as " mammoth ivory " itfelf, were firft brought 

 to the Weftern world by the Arabs. "Mam- 

 moth" is merely a form of "behemoth." Witzen, 

 who firft defcribed the creature in 1694, ufes the 

 two names as fynonymous; and Father Avril, a 

 Jefuit who travelled in China in 1685, calls the 

 mammoth " Behemot." The Turkifh dialects 

 habitually interchange b and m, and there feems 

 no doubt that Job's " behemoth," which the 

 Arabs pronounce " mehemot," filtered through 

 the Ruffian and Tartar tongues into our " mam- 

 moth," the word " behemoth " being ufed of any 

 monftrous beaft originally, and then confined in 

 the North to the great foffil elephant. 1 The 

 creature itfelf was firft defcribed by Witzen 

 (whofe book, written in Dutch, has never been 

 tranflated) in 1686. The firft mammoth tuik was 

 brought to England by Jofias Logan in 1 6 1 1 , and 

 had been purchafed near the Petfchora river. A 

 mammoth mummy was firft difmterred about 

 1692; another was found near the river AJafej 

 in 1787; next comes the one above defcribed in 

 1699 on the Tamut Peninfula ; another was 

 opened out on the Yenifej in 1839, an< ^ again 

 others were found in 1846 and i866. 2 



1 See an excellent paper on the name " Mammoth " by 

 H. H. Howorth, F.S.A., in The Field Naturalijt, July, 1882, 

 p. 30. 



2 "Voyage of the Vega," by Nordenfkiold (1881). See 

 vol. i., p. 400 feq. 



