1923] 



CRABB, A FOSSIL ELEPHANT 



175 



been more experienced in exhuming unchanged fossils, they would 

 not have exposed the entire specimen. However, neither experience 

 nor skill could save these bones, for they had lain near the surface for 

 so many years and were so badly disintegrated that they were past 

 redemption. 



Fig. 98. — Skull and portion of spinal column 

 of Mammoth. 



Although this Oklahoma fossil was destined never to be exhibited, 

 it nevertheless had a part to play in the education of the many people 

 who visited it in its ancient grave. To even a casual observer, the 

 exposed remains of this lordly Columbian elephant, or Southern mam- 

 moth, as it is often called, was like reading the open pages of one of 

 Mother Nature's many volumes. Here lay the remains of a mighty 

 organism which had lived thousands of years ago, when man was very 



