232 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



In Europe what is known as "green ivory" — that is, un- 

 seasoned, freshly cut material — is preferred. This is so 

 popular that dealers will take the greatest care that it does 

 not dry out, and to keep it unchanged they often wrap it 

 in damp linen cloth dipped in salt and water, many folds of 

 this being put around the ivory and not removed unless the 

 pieces be shown to some one, when they are brought up 

 from the cellars in which they have been stored. The pref- 

 erence in the United States, however, is for the white ivory, 

 and the whiter it be the better it is liked. Its white tone 

 is brought about by putting the material in a drawing oven 

 and leaving it there for a month or more, to prevent its 

 cracking by a too sudden change in temperature. It may 

 also be bleached by the use of peroxide of hydrogen. 



Our chief source of supply for ivory is the African con- 

 tinent, and indeed a considerable part of that brought 

 from India to Europe, known as Indian ivory, had already 

 been imported to Bombay from an African source. Some 

 of the very best comes from Cameroon; and Loango, the 

 Congo, Gabun, and Ambriz, as well as the Gold Coast, 

 Sierra Leone, and Cape Coast Castle have all been commer- 

 cial sources of supply. The bulk of this material is now 

 derived from the Congo, and this being a Belgian colony 

 has served to make Antwerp a rival of London as a market 

 for ivory. The French Sudan does not send a particu- 

 larly good quality, the ivory being what is called in the 

 trade "ringy" (that is, with marked alternating dark and 

 light rings), and hence not offering the smooth, even-toned 

 surface so much prized. A mellowness of tone and a lack 

 of surface mottling characterize the best African ivory. * The 



*The two species of elephant surviving to our day are the Elephas or Loxodon africanus 

 and the Elephas indicus. Of these both the male and female of the African species are 

 supplied with tusks, while they are only procured from the male animal of the Indian spe- 

 cies; but little material is furnished by the Cinghalese variety, as hardly one in a hundred 

 of them has tusks of any available size. 



