346 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



rived from the statement of Mr. Westendarp that 1,165 

 mammoth tusks were received there from Siberia in 1872, 

 and 1,140 tusks in the following year, each of these weighing 

 from 140 to 150 pounds. However, only about 14 per cent, 

 of this material was of the first quality, 17 per cent, being 

 still useful though of inferior quality. More than half was 

 very poor and 15 per cent, entirely worthless.* 



The French zoologist. Doctor Trouessart, holds out the 

 hope that in case the African source of supply for ivory 

 should show signs of exhaustion, through the killing off of 

 the elephants, Siberian mammoth ivory might suflSce to 

 provide the requisite material. He believes that what has 

 already been taken from this source is but a small fraction 

 of the deposits, and that if deep excavations were made, 

 perhaps using dynamite to blast out the ground, very rich 

 deposits would be encountered, and he declares that "there 

 is every hope of finding a precious reserve in the fossil ivory 

 of Siberia."! 



The Museum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris is now in pos- 

 session of the remains of a Siberian mammoth with its soft 

 parts partially preserved. The only other specimens of 

 this kind are in the Imperial Museum of Natural History 

 in Petrograd. That now in Paris was extracted by the 

 orders and at the expense of Count Stenbok-Fermor from 

 one of the islands of the New Siberia group, and there is 

 little likelihood of another such mammoth being seen in 

 Central Europe, as the exportation of mammoth remains 

 has recently been prohibited by imperial ukase. J 



The remarkable preservation of certain mammoth re- 

 mains embedded for tens of thousands of years in Siberian 



*Smithsoiiian Institution Annual Report for 1899, R. Lydekker, "Mammoth Ivory," 

 p. 366. 



fSee Smithsonian Report for 1899, R. Lydekker, "Mammoth Ivory," p. 366, Wash- 

 ington, 1901: 



tCheviical Neics, July 25. 1913, p. 46. 



