28 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 5* 



Chicago measuring respectively nine feet three inches and nine feet 

 eight inches. . . . 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 one hundred eighty-four pounds." 



In a footnote 1 he gives the measurement of the left tusk of an 

 African elephant that is ten feet three and one-half inches in length 

 along the outer curve, twenty-four and one-quarter inches in cir- 

 cumference, and weighing two hundred and thirty-nine pounds. 



The longest tusk reported from Alaska is twelve feet ten inches 

 in length. During the summer of 1907 the writer measured a tusk 

 at Fort Gibbon that was ten feet seven inches long and the greatest 

 circumference was twenty-one inches. This specimen was broken at 

 both ends. 



The tusks belonging to the skull shown in plate vn are seven feet 

 six inches in length. 



The tusks of the mammoth, as a rule, were more curved and of 

 greater length than of the living forms, although there is a great 

 variety of shapes and sizes. 



Economic Importance oE Mammoth Ivory. — It appears that 

 the mammoth remains found in Alaska are not in as fresh a state 

 of preservation as those found in Siberia, where for a good many 

 years their tusks have constituted an important article of export. 

 Dr. Middendorf, who visited Siberia about the year 1840, estimated 

 the annual output of this fossil ivory to be one hundred and ten 

 thousand pounds and representing at least one hundred individuals. - 

 From their great abundance, Dr. R. Lydekker" has suggested that 

 tusks were probably developed in both sexes. 



It is seldom, if at all, that tusks are found in Alaska sufficiently 

 well preserved to compete on the market with those of the African 

 and Indian elephant, as is the case with the Siberian ivory ; usually 

 they are found to be discolored and either badly checked or exfoli- 

 ated. A curio dealer in Nome, however, told the writer, "A few 

 years ago a man would not take a tusk as a gift, but of late the best 

 ones had acquired a commercial value, being cut into curios for the 

 tourist trade." 



In the "curio" stores at Skagway we were shown some of the 

 articles manufactured for the trade from this ivory, consisting of 



' Lucas, F. A. : Annual Report Smithsonian Institution, 1899, p. 355. 



" This estimate appears rather low, as the average tusk would hardly weigh 

 two hundred and fifty pounds, or five hundred pounds for the pair, which 

 would give over two hundred individuals. 



3 Lydekker, R. : Annual Report Smithsonian Institution, 1899 (pp. 361-366). 

 p. 362. 



