338 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1919. 
When these paleontologists exhume in certain districts of Africa— 
for example, in certain parts of the basin of the Sobat or in certain 
regions near Lake Rudolph—the remains of the elephants which are 
now living there, they will feel in the presence of these colossal re- 
mains of a mammal which will then be extinct, the stupefaction which 
the discovery of the Diplodocus caused their predecessors. And when 
they find in other regions relatively not far removed from the preced- 
ing—for instance, at certain points in Somaliland—remains of ele- 
phants which were not so tall, and whose general form was more 
compact, they will probably try to find what relations can exist be- 
tween these types. Perhaps geology and paleontology will teach 
them that Africa was undergoing at our epoch a progressive desicca- 
tion, and that this process was nearly complete in Somaliland while 
the regions previously mentioned were still rather freely watered, even 
marshy in places; perhaps they will thus be led to believe that the 
differences in vegetation due to these causes had placed the Somaliland 
elephants at a disadvantage, and that, for instance, our Loxodon afri- 
canus orleanst would only be a degenerate representative of the group 
of the L. a knochenhaueri, peeli, cavendishi, oxyotis . . . But 
we know that such is not the fact. The first of these elephants is a 
mountain animal, very strong, very active, made particularly com- 
bative by certain conditions of insecurity, but still finding in the 
region where it lives an ample food supply and altogether the oppo- 
site to a degenerate animal. 
Let us therefore not be hasty in assuming such relationship between 
the largest Siberian mammoths and some few small individuals, even 
if these latter were found in the extreme north of this region. We 
must hope that new material will soon throw new light on this sub- 
ject. Let us hope especially that such specimens will be collected 
with the most extreme care, and that all details as to their condition 
and deposition will be very exactly determined. Meanwhile it is 
permissible to regard the extinction of the mammoth as having prob- 
ably come about progressively through degeneration, resulting from 
lack of adaptation to cold, a degeneration which was probably aggra- 
vated by some other causes of inferiority, and which was accelerated, 
perhaps, by a gradual diminution in the food supply. 
comparative anatomy of the Paris Museum exceeds all these records; although sawed off 
at the base and broken at the tip it measures along the outer side of its curve 3.62 meters, 
and its total length must have been in the neighborhood of 3.90 meters; its maximum 
circumference reaches 0.60 meters. However out of proportjon this tusk may have been 
to the size of the animal that it came from, the latter must have been, to be able to bear 
a pair of appendages of this magnitude, much larger than those whose height has just 
been mentioned. I may add that this last specimen came from the banks of the Kolima ; 
unfortunately I can not give the locality more exactly, but in any event it is a little more 
to the south than the localities where the Adams and Stenbok-Fermor mammoths were 
found. 
