





































re was a time, anywhere from 
to 100,000 years ago, when great 
ers of mammoths ranged along 
northern borders of Asia and 
pica, At the same time forests of 
‘abounded in those latitudes, and 
| afforded the principal nourish- 
| of the huge beasts. Owing to 
tie changes the pines disap- 
d, and this led to the extinction 
mammoths. The mammoth was 
/tnitive form of elephant. 
was not, on the average, much, 
larger than the elephants of 
but he was provided with a 
4 coating of fur and hair to en- 
stim to face the Arctic cold, which 
@&\ms to have braved for the sake 
@ \pines. Inside he wore a thick, 
ly{ jacket of a reddish brown 
fand outside a coat of black, 
ly Wair, that hung in long, shag- 
1888s from his flanks. His tusks 
ere, upon the whole, longer 
\tholse of existing élephants and 
\curtyed, like a pair of huge fixed 
ers, |} with which he could grasp 
swin's within his easier reach the 
ulouj; pranches of the pines. 
6 M4mmoth was known to some 
© €4rliest races of man in pre- 
oric times. We are sure of this 
S® ‘»ictures of mammoths, en- 
‘ed OT) horn, ivory and stone, have 
: 8 a among the relics of the 

e A&4 in Hurope. These pictures 
“¥ not only was the artistic 
eveloped very early in the 
man, but that even in that 
remote time the artists un- 
heir business astonishingly 
had an admirable technical 
o€ 
me 
ot until the discovery of the 
dies of mammoths, com- 
eserved in Northern Siberia, 
at wewere in a position to judge 
the accupcy of the representations of 
hose gitantic animals that the early 
irtists, ith their rude tools, had 
nade, a 
jad hitff the distinctive peculiarl- 
q 
‘heir pijtures could not for a moment 
If take} for representations of ordi- 
jary elehants. 
| It hag generally been assumed that 
he mammoth was hunted and kifled 
by early man, Whether he used its 
lesh for food is a question, but he 
tertainly found its tusks useful for 
making implements, and, as we have 
seen, he sometimes engraved his pic- 
lures upon them. Ivory has always 
been a favorite material for human 
industry to work upon, and it was 
mployed proportionately more in an- 
fent times than it is today, partly 
cause at present the supply, owing 


|unting the Long Dead Mammoth 
Garrett P. Serviss Tells of the Strange Finds 
By GARRETT P. SERVISS 
‘jes ofthe mammoth go well that} and russet and brick red,” 
even avers that sometimes combina- | 
(THEIR MARRIED LIFE 


to the gradual disappearance of ele- 
phants, is falling off. 
Since the discovery that large num- 
pers of mammoths are embedded in 
the frozen marshes of Siberia and 
Alaska, the hunting of their tusks 
for the ivory market has become 4 
profitable occupation. Mr. Bassett 
Digby, an Englishman, who has re- 
cently been hunting for frozen mam- 
moths in Siberia, gives some new 
facts about them. 
He refers to the curious fact that 
the woolly rhinoceros “used to hunt 
around with the mammoth in those 
parts of the world,” and that its re- 
mains are sometimes found with 
those of its larger companions. The 
natives of northern Siberia, who be- 
lieve that mammoths were a kind of 
gigantic moles dwelling deep under- 
ground, and which inevitably perished 
if they happened to tunnel out into 
the sunshine, think that the woolly | 
rhinoceros was a big bird, after the 
style of the great roc described by 
Sinbad the Sailor, and they told Mr. 
Digby that the curved horn of the 
rhinoceros which he found was the 
“toe claw” of the mighty bird. 
There has been considerable dispute 
over the size and length of the tusks 
of the mammoth: Mr. Digby says the 
longest he ever saw measured 12 feet 
9 inches. ‘He measured twenty or 
thirty which ran from 9 feet 6 inches 
to 10 feet 6 inches, and a few from 11 
to 12 feet. The most remarkable thing 
about these tusks, perhaps, is their 
variety and beauty of color. A few 
are a pure, milky white, but “these 
have come from many thousand years 
of cold storage, hacked from a carcass 
only recently washed out in a spring 
freshet.” 
Many tusks resemble, in color, 
stained mahogany, polished near the 
points. “There are plends of mahog- 
any and white and mahogany and 
cream. There are bright blue tusks, 
then it was found that they | tusks of steel blue—from soil rich in 
phosphate of jron—tusks of walnut 
Mr. Digby 
tions of tints are superposed until 
the surface of a tusk shows the blend- 
ing of soft, fading colors representing 
the entire spectrum, 
That the substance of these tusks 
should be perfectly preserved, even 
though the color is often changed, } 
does not appear so wonderful when 
we find that, in some cases, the flesh 
of the animals is as fresh as meat 
from a cold storage vault, although 
their bodies have probably lain there 
for a time ten times as long ago as 
that when the pyramids of Egypt 
were built! 

glad t 
“We 

“Pun 
if 
| 
