H. H. Howorth—The Mammoth in Siberia. 409 
notices of the Mammoth, if not the earliest, is that of Father Avril, 
who travelled to Russia in 1685, etc. He calls it always Behemot 
(Avril’s Travels, 175-177). 
Witzen, the famous Dutch writer, was, I believe, the first Euro- 
pean writer who used the term Mammoth. He doubtless imported 
the term from Russia. Strahlenberg, who wrote his account of 
Siberia, after a residence there of many years, in the beginning of 
the eighteenth century, says, as to the name Mammoth, “It doubtless 
had its origin from the Hebrew and Arabic; this word denoting 
Behemot of which Job speaks (xl. chapter), and which the Arabs 
pronounce Mehemot. . . . It is certain the Arabs brought the word 
into Great Tartary; for the Ostiaks near the river Oby call the 
Mammoth Khosar, and the Tartars call it Khir. And though the 
Arabian name of an Elephant is Fyhl, yet, if very large, they use 
the adjective Mehemodi to it; and these Arabs coming into Tartary, 
and finding there the relics of some monstrous great beasts, not 
certain of what kind they might be, they called these teeth Mehemot, 
which afterwards became a proper name among the Tartars, and by 
the Russians is corruptly pronounced Mammoth. . . . The Russian 
Mammoth certainly came from the word Behemot, in which opinion 
I am confirmed by the testimony of an ancient Russian priest, 
Gregory by name, father confessor to Princess Sophia, who was 
many years an exile in Siberia, from whom I was told that formerly 
the name for these bones in Siberia was not Mammoth, but Memoth, 
and that the Nurnan dialect had made that alteration” (Strahlenberg, 
op. cit. 402-5). These extracts will suffice to make clear what is 
indisputable, namely, that Mammoth is a mere corruption of the 
Arabic Behemoth or Mehemoth. The suggestion of an ingenious 
speculator of recent times, that it is derived from the word ma, 
meaning ‘land’ among the Fins and mut, which we are told in» 
Esthonia means a ‘mole,’ is not fora moment tenable. The Esthonians 
live a long way from Siberia, and the name of the Mole among the 
eastern Ugrians is quite different. 
The next question is, how comes it that the Arabs, who are now 
strangers to Siberia, should have given a name to the Mammoth 
which has become current in all the European languages? This 
leads into an archeological byeway, in which some out-of-the-way 
facts will, I trust, be found. Eginhard, the biographer of 
Charlemagne, tells us that his master received as a present 
‘from the great Khalif Harun-ar-Rashid, the horn of a Unicorn 
and the claw of a Griffon. These were long preserved in 
the Treasury at St. Denis, and are described in a work published at 
Paris in 1646, entitled Le Tresor Sacré de St. Denys, ete., to which 
my attention has been called by Mr. Franks. ‘The Unicorn’s horn 
was made the subject of an- elaborate inquiry written at the Hague 
in 1646 (see Churchill’s Travels, p. 887), in which it is said this 
horn was altogether like a similar one at Copenhagen, and that the 
Danes were of opinion that all those kind of horns found in Muscovy, 
Germany, Italy, and France, came from Denmark. The Danes sold 
these horns as Unicorns’ horns. The one at St. Denis had the same 
