234 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



nourishment of the elephants. This is so marked that it 

 has been asserted that the character of country whence the 

 material was derived could be generally determined by ex- 

 amining its qualities in this respect. Thus the ivory brought 

 from the steppes of Massai is celebrated for its softness, and 

 it has been noted that the lower levels of the Congo basin 

 furnish the soft ivory, while as the altitude increases the 

 grain becomes coarser.* 



That the elephant, although essentially an inhabitant 

 of the plains and forests, sometimes finds his way to high 

 latitudes, is shown by the observed existence of elephant 

 tracks at a height of 10,000 feet on Mt. Kenia, British 

 East Africa. The limit of the growth of timber and bamboo 

 is well beneath this level. The writer who records these 

 observations gives it as his opinion that credence can be 

 accorded to the reports of some African natives that ele- 

 phants have occasionally wandered almost up to the snow 

 line, which in Equatorial Africa cannot be placed lower 

 than 15,000 feet.f 



Another source of ivory which has been actively exploited 

 is furnished by the fossil remains in Siberia, more especially 

 in the Liakhovian Isles, in the Polar Sea. Some of this 

 fossil ivory also comes from frozen Alaska. Here are found 

 the bones of mammoths and mastodons which perished 

 thousands of years ago, in the later geological period, and 

 the enormous number of these mammals once existing in 

 this region is proved by the almost inexhaustible character 

 of the deposits, which show no signs of depletion, although 

 recourse has been had to them during the past two centuries. 

 The quality of this Siberian ivory is, however, far from con- 

 stant, although some of it is surprisingly good, as perfect 

 in fact as though the bearer of the tusks had recently died. 



*"La Belgique Coloniale," Vol. II, p. 618 (1897), and Vol. I, p. 93 (1895-96). 

 fRichard Tjader, "The Big Game of Africa," New York and London, 1910, p. 55. 



