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OTATn?S A WD PIOMIES. 



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favourite haunt of these monsters, if we are to judge from their 

 superabundant remains. Here their tusks are so abundant as 

 to form " Ivory mines," seemingly, practically inexhaustible. 

 Hedoustroem in his *' Survey of the Laechow Islands on the 

 north-eastern coast of Siberia, remarks that the first of these 

 islands is little more than one mass of these bones ; and that 

 although the Siberian traders have been in the habit of bringing 

 over large cargoes of tusks for upwards of sixty years, yet there 

 appears to be no sensible diminution." " It is contended that 

 the number of Elephants, now living on the globe is greatly 

 inferior to the number of those whose bones are lemaining ia 

 Siberia." Almost the whole of the ivory work made in Russia 

 is from fossil ivory. It is also used in England. In conse- 

 quence of its abundance it is much cheaper than the ivory of 

 Africa and India. It becomes sooner yellow by the influence 

 of the weather or heat, and is a little more brittle than the latter, 

 and seems to be, in this respect, inferior. Tusks of Siberian ivory 

 have been cited, as weighing two hundred pounds. Owen says 

 that there is reason to believe that skeletons more or less entire 

 have been recovered in Britain. That the animal — entire — has 

 been found in Siberia, is a notable fact. The story of its 

 discovery is as follows " Ossip Schumachoff, a Tungusian chief 

 hunter and collector of fossil ivory who had migrated in 1799 

 to the peninsula of Tamust at the mouth of the River Lena, one 

 day perceived amongst the blocks of ice, a shapeless mass not at 

 all resembling tiio large pieces of floating wood which are 

 commonly found ther«. To observe it nearer, he landed, 

 climbed up a rock and examined this new object on all sides but 

 ■without fbeing able to discover what it was. The following year 

 he perceived that the mass was more disengaged from the 

 blocks of ice, and had two projecting parts, but was still unable 

 to make out its nature. Towards the end of the following 

 summer (1801) the entire side of the animal and one of his 

 tusks, were quite free from the ice. On his return to the 

 borders of Lake Gncoul, he communicated this extraordinary 

 discovery to his wife and some of his friends ; but the way in 

 which they considered the matter filled him with grief. The old 

 men related, on the occasion, their having heard tlicir fathers 



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