QUALITIES OF IVORY 235 



This is due to the non-conducting properties of the material, 

 and also to its preservation frozen in ice for many thousand 

 years. In fact, one mammoth was found with skin and 

 flesh so well preserved that it was traced by following the 

 dogs who had eaten of it for years. The first notice of these 

 remains was given by natives in 1799, when the body was 

 probably still nearly or quite intact, but when Adams secured^ 

 it, in 1806, much of it had been eaten, and the tusks had been 

 removed by a native. In all some dozen remains in this 

 condition have been found in Siberia, the earliest being dis- 

 covered in 1787 in the Alasega River.* 



However, only about 15 per cent, of this ivory is of 

 very good quality; some 17 per cent, is fairly good, but 

 the remainder is worthless.f Fossil ivory when scraped 

 emits a fetid odour, due to decomposition and the presence 

 of sulphurated hydrogen gas. Holtzapffel notes the finding 

 in these Siberian fields of a tusk weighing 186 pounds, which 

 was cut up for piano keys.| An interesting circumstance 

 connected with the finding of these fossil remains is that, 

 in 1722, Peter the Great gave orders to the provincial 

 governors of the region to make diligent search to secure a 

 complete skeleton of the extinct mammal. 



Mammoth ivory is found along the banks of the streams 

 flowing into Kotzebue Sound, Alaska, more especially the 

 Kowak, Buckland, and Selawik, in Eschscholtz Bay, etc. 

 The deposits, which are uncovered by freshets and the re- 

 cession of ice cliffs, include both teeth and tusks, some of 

 them still in very fair condition, though many are black and 

 hard. Decayed mammoth ivory of a bluish hue is some- 

 times ground up by the Eskimo and used as a pigment for 



*Lydekker, "The Royal Natural History," Vol. II, London, 1894, p. 544. 

 fLydekker, op. cit.. Vol. II, p. 545. 



JCharles Holtzapffel, "Turning and Mechanical Manipulation," Vol. I, London, 1843, 

 p. 138, note. 



