320 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



During the Revolutionary period ivory busks were worn 

 in ladies ' bodices. A century ago whales' teeth were en- 

 graved by whalers on the New England coast, usually with 

 a pocket-knife, an operation often requiring many days for 

 its execution. The carved teeth were then exhibited in the 

 bric-a-brac, dry goods, and whiskey shops in New Bedford, 

 where they were frequently exchanged for a mere trifle. This 

 lasted until the whaling industry was destroyed by the intro- 

 duction of petroleum. If the latter had not been discovered, 

 whales would have become extinct. Ivory is not well 

 adapted for use in making artificial teeth and has been but 

 very rarely employed in this way, although an ivory tooth 

 has been unearthed on a spot on Manhatten Island in the 

 neighbourhood of 190th Street. 



The Bayerischer Landesgewerbeanstalt in Nuremberg pos- 

 sesses many of the smaller ivory carvings, some of these being 

 modern while others are the work of the seventeenth and eigh- 

 teenth centuries. Although by far the greater part of these 

 objects are of elephant ivory, there is one interesting bit carved 

 of walrus ivory. This is a miniature reproduction of the 

 monument of Peter the Great on the Neva at Petrograd. 



A weird and unpleasant rumour is reported on the author- 

 ity of a Hamburg importer of bone and ivory. This is that 

 human bones are imported from the Levant for industrial 

 use. These were said to be more desirable than others for 

 artistic work, because they contained less phosphoric acid. 

 The writer who records this report declares that he could 

 not find any confirmatory evidence, although he made dili- 

 gent efforts to secure it.* 



A long string of fifteen interesting objects, rather ghastlj^ 

 in their associations, but with a history, are to be seen in 

 the Oakland Public Museum, Oakland, California. These 

 are idols carved out of human bones with great skill and 



*Somborii, "Die Elfenbein-und Beinschnitzerei," Heidelberg, 1899, p. 31; note. 



