QUALITIES OF IVORY 223 



was found after the ball had been turned.* As a gen- 

 eral rule the tusks of cows are preferred for the manufacture 

 of billiard balls, as they are less curved than the larger 

 tusks from the bull elephants. f 



The appearance presented by a diseased elephant's tusk 

 is shown in sections of that of the elephant "Tip," of the 

 New York Zoological Gardens. In his day a famous speci- 

 men of these gigantic pachyderms, poor Tip developed, in 

 1902, the form of madness and "badness" peculiarly char- 

 acteristic of the male elephant in captivity. Several times 

 his sudden and unforeseen attacks upon his keepers very 

 nearly resulted in a fatal accident. Finally it was decided 

 that capital punishment must be inflicted, but the choice 

 of means to effect this end presented some difficulty. As 

 the quickest and most effective agent of execution, cyanide 

 of potassium was given the preference, but the elephant 

 was so suspicious, and appeared to be so well aware of what 

 was intended, that the greater part of a day passed before 

 he could be persuaded to consume a mash in which the drug 

 had been mixed. The result, when once he had absorbed 

 the poison, was satisfactory enough. There was a mighty 

 convulsion of his enormous frame, in the course of which he 

 broke one of the heavy chains binding his foot to the side 

 of the cage; then he lurched over and expired. 



That a decayed elephant tusk can cause the animal to 

 suffer excruciating pain is commonly believed by the natives 

 of Ceylon, who assert that in a paroxysm of pain an elephant 

 has sometimes broken off the tusk to escape the anguish. 

 While this is not generally admitted, the observed fact that 

 the pulp of the tusk is connected with the dentine by very 

 tenuous filaments passing through the dentinal tubes may 



*John Bland-Sutton, in the Lancet, Vol. 179, p. 1535, 1910. In this article Fig. I, p. 

 1534, shows an iron ball encysted in the pulp chamber, and Fig. 4, p. 1535, a spearhead 

 similarly encysted; both in the Musemn of the Royal College of Surgeons. 



tOp. cit., p. 1536, 1910. 



