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The National Geographic Magazine 



Alamnioth Recovered from Northern Sibe 



A STRANGE AND REMARKABLE 

 BEAST 



THE mammoth shown in the accom- 

 panying illustration had been 

 preserved in the frozen soil of the tundra 

 of Siberia so perfectly that after count- 

 less centuries the flesh and hair appeared 

 almost as fresh as if the animal had been 

 dead only a few hours. The average 

 size of the mammoth appears to have 

 been about the same as that of the exist- 

 ing species of elephants, but nature had 

 provided it with a dense clothing of long, 

 coarse, outer hair and close, under, 

 woolly hair of a reddish brown color, in 

 order that it might be equipped for the 

 cold climate of its habitat. 



The geographical range of the mam- 

 moth was very extensive. There is 

 scarcely a county in England in which 

 some of its remains have not been found, 

 either in alluvial deposits of gravel or in 

 caverns. Its remains have been found 

 throughout central Europe, northern 

 Asia, and the northern part of the Amer- 



ican continent, though the exact distribu- 

 tion of the animal in the new world is 

 still undetermined. The mammoth be- 

 longs to the post-Tertiary or Pleistocene 

 epoch of geologists, and was undoubt- 

 edly contemporaneous with man in many 

 places. It probably existed in Britain 

 before, during, and after the Glacial 

 period. 



Man}' remains of this huge beast have 

 been found in Siberia, and it is stated 

 that for a very long period there has 

 been a regular export of mammoth ivory 

 from that region for commercial pur- 

 poses. Nordenskiold, who had special 

 opportunities for studying the subject of 

 the mammoth during his northeast pas- 

 sage, states that more than loo pairs of 

 mammoth tusks have come into the mar- 

 ket yearly during the last 200 3'-ears. The 

 Siberian shore between the mouth of the 

 Obi River and Bering Strait and the 

 Arctic islands to the north were reported 

 by him to contain the relics of many 

 thousands of mammoths. 



