QUALITIES OF IVORY 237 



ished in great numbers. However, we are usually taught 

 to regard geological changes as extremely gradual, so grad- 

 ual that the adjustment of living organisms to the chang- 

 ing conditions is greatly favoured. Here, however, many 

 of the observed facts would rather seem to point to some 

 sudden and unexpected cataclysm. As great an authority 

 as Darwin confessed that the problem presented by the 

 discovery of almost perfectly preserved remains of the mam- 

 moth in the far north was insoluble for him, for to insure the 

 preservation of the flesh the bodies must have been enclosed 

 in the ice from a period closely following that of the animal's 

 death. In certain cases an autopsy revealed the presence 

 of undigested food in the stomachs, and also of twigs and 

 leaves from growths that are now to be found only in 

 southern Siberia, far to the south of the site of these de- 

 posits. This also seems to point to some sudden and violent 

 catastrophe. Another curious circumstance is that after 

 storms tusks and bones of mammoths are washed up by 

 the waves and cast upon the shores of the Arctic islands, 

 thus showing that the deposits extend for a considerable 

 distance along the bed of the ocean.* 



A very early record of the exploitation of the fossil ivory 

 deposits in Siberia is given by the Jesuit priest and mis- 

 sionary, Philippe Avril, who journeyed through Europe and 

 parts of Asia in 1685 and subsequent years, his travels 

 occupying six years in all.t The description of his experi- 

 ences, published in 1692, recounts that from an Asiatic re- 

 gion on the River Lena, toward the Arctic Ocean, was 

 brought an ivory exceeding in beauty that from India, since 

 it was at once much smoother and whiter. The tale ran 

 that this Arctic ivory (from the Siberia of to-day) was not 



*Ibid., p. 56. 



fPhilippe Avril, "Voyage en divers etats d'Europe et d'Asie," Paris, 1692; see pp. 208- 

 211. 



