236 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



decorating masks, beluga hats, finger rattles, etc.; in other 

 cases the material is worked up into ladles, spoons, skin 

 scrapers, and the like.* 



The group known as the Liakov Islands, the principal 

 ones being Liakov's Island, Moloi, and Kotelnoi, was named 

 by order of Empress Catherine II of Russia, for the dis- 

 coverer, a fur hunter, who landed on one of these islands 

 in 1770. Examination of the soil revealed the presence of 

 enormous deposits of fossil ivory. Subsequent exploration 

 resulted in the discovery of the other islands of this group, 

 all presenting similar conditions. Indeed, to some of these 

 early explorers it almost appeared as though the islands were 

 built up out of these fossil remains. When the ice-covered 

 sand cliffs were thawed by the summer sun, the surface 

 would slip down, bearing along great quantities of mammoth 

 tusks and bones. In 1806 Sirovatskoi discovered the island 

 later known as New Siberia and several others in its vicin- 

 ity. New Siberia proved to be the richest of all these islands 

 of the Arctic Sea in fossil remains, and we learn that, in 

 1809, 10,000 pounds of fossil ivory was taken thence, while 

 in 1821 the production rose to 20,000 pounds; the supply 

 seemed to be inexhaustible. f It has been noted that the 

 ivory taken in New Siberia is whiter than that from the 

 mainland of Siberia. 



Various theories have been advanced to explain the pres- 

 ence of the mammoth remains in such extraordinary abun- 

 dance. It is supposed that geological changes, the sinking 

 of the land, gradually forced these mammals to the higher 

 ground, and finally to the tops of the hills, which had be- 

 come isolated from the mainland as islands. There being 

 little means of subsistence left for the animals, they per- 



*Commumcation of G. T. Emmons, of Princeton, N. J. 



fRev. D. Gath Whitley, "The Ivory Islands of the Arctic Ocean," in the Journal of 

 the Transactions of the Victoria Institute, Vol. XLII, pp. 35-57, London, 1910. 



