332 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



The three types which existed at the same time with 

 man were the mastodon, Mammut americanum, in North 

 America,* also found in Russia, the straight-tusked ele- 

 phant, Elephas antiquus, in Europe and southern Asia, 

 and the hairy mammoth, Elephas primigenius, in Europe 

 and in northern Asia and North America. As is well known, 

 some remarkably well-preserved specimens of the last- 

 named type have been found in Siberia, one of the most im- 

 pressive being that found in 1900, on the Beresovka, Siberia, 

 eight hundred miles west of Bering Strait, and sixty miles 

 north of the boundary of the Arctic Circle. The remains 

 show unmistakable evidences of a violent death, probably 

 resulting from a fall into a hidden ice crevasse. In the 

 animal's mouth could still be seen pieces of grass partly 

 masticated and unswallowed, and a fractured hip indicated 

 a disabling injury from the fall. The frantic efforts the 

 mammoth must have made to extricate itself from its icy 

 prison are testified to by a mass of clotted blood in its chest 

 resulting from the bursting of a blood vessel. This mam- 

 moth's hide was covered with an under coat of woolly, 

 yellowish-brown hair and an outer bristly coat, shading 

 from fawn colour to a dark brown or black. On the chin 

 and the breast this hair reached a length of at least half a 

 yard. The remains have been set up in the Petrograd 

 Museum of Natural History as nearly as possible in the 

 same position in which they were found, the skeleton being 

 placed alongside in a walking posture. f 



This Beresovka mammoth, as it is now commonly called, 

 was first reported by a Lamut named Tarabykni, who was out 



*Mastodons of peculiar type also existed in South America, probably contemporary 

 with primitive man; the true elephants did not reach that continent. See W. B. Scott, 

 1913, "History of the Land Mammals of the Western Hemisphere," p. 436. 



tRichard S. Lull, Ph. D., "The Evolution of the Elephant," Annual Report (1908) of 

 the Smithsonian Institution, pp. 652, 653. The plate in the present work is from a 

 photograph sent by F. Loewinson-Lessing, of the Imperial Museum of Natural History, 

 Petrograd. 



