EVOLUTION OF ELEPHANTS 351 



is asserted by Charles W. Gilniore, because the greater 

 weight of certain bones or tusks may have caused them to 

 work deeper into the soft soil in which they are deposited 

 in the course of a long lapse of time. As to this Mr. Gil- 

 more writes:* 



"Their presence here may be accounted for on the sup- 

 position that the animals became mired in the bogs before 

 they became solidly frozen as they are now. This naturally 

 raises the question: If mired down in such a place, why 

 is it that the remains should be so universally scattered.'*" 

 The writer suggests that they may have been separated by 

 the creeping of the muck or peat — a phenomenon familiar 

 to all students of deposits of this nature. By such creeping 

 the muck may have moved considerable distances, particu- 

 larly where the flow is inclined, as in many of the gulches. 

 From the fact that most of the bones occur in the lower layers 

 of the muck, no matter what the depth of the deposits may 

 be, it is apparent that their specific gravity has caused them 

 to sink to their present resting-places. Thus it would not 

 be necessary for the extermination of the fauna to have 

 taken place at one time, as might be inferred by their occur- 

 rence at one level. 



The mammoth tusks found in Alaska are not in a suf- 

 ficiently good state of preservation to compete with the 

 Siberian fossil ivory, for they are usually badly discoloured 

 and exfoliated. Still parts of them have been successfully 

 worked up as curios into the form of paper-weights on which 

 were engraved representations of Alaskan scenes. Often 

 the hairy mammoth is depicted, many of these carvings or 

 etchings being the work of native Eskimo carvers. The 

 dealers in Skagway draw their material principally from the 



*Charles W. Gilmore, "Smithsonian Exploration in Alaska in 1907 in Search of Plei- 

 stocene Fossil Vertebrates," Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, part of Vol. LI, 

 Washington, 1908, p. 25. 



