222 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



the elasticity by which the body is kept flexible and move- 

 ment rendered easy is the reason why bones are as a rule 

 porous and less solid than ivory, although some of the bones 

 of the body are very hard, notably those that are used as 

 substitutes for ivory. 



The material commonly understood under the term 

 *' ivory " comes from elephants, whales, and other animals, in 

 whose structure tusks and teeth are notable features. 

 Great toughness and tensile strength must therefore be its 

 leading characteristic. In the case of the elephant, espe- 

 cially, the tusk is the animal's chief offensive and defensive 

 weapon. Untold thousands of elephants have been bereft 

 of their lives to secure these tusks, for they are, so to speak, 

 the animal's jewels. A very curious circumstance is that 

 not uncommonly there is found buried in a tusk an iron 

 bullet, which was intended to kill the animal, but which 

 got no farther than a lodgement in the very thing the hunter 

 aimed to possess. In the course of time it was covered by 

 the material with which the tusk is built up, and no out- 

 ward traces remained to betray its presence, it having be- 

 come completely encysted. Spearheads may also become 

 encysted in the same way, as is shown by a specimen now 

 in the Museum of the Odontological Society in London, 

 where a spearhead, 7j in. long and Ij in. wide, had entered 

 at a point near the skull and was so completely encysted 

 that nothing in the external appearance of the tusk revealed 

 its presence.* 



Perhaps the strangest instance of the finding of a bullet 

 embedded in ivory, and one proving how completely con- 

 cealed it may become in the course of years, is illustrated 

 by a specimen in the Museum of the Royal College of 

 Surgeons. This is a billiard ball within which a bullet 



*Tomes, " A Manual of Dental Anatomy," 3d ed., London, 1889, p. 376; see also Combe, 

 Phil. Trans., 1801, p. 165. 



