352 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



Klondyke region, while that brought to Nome usually comes 

 from Eschscholtz Bay or from the Buckland or Kobuk 

 rivers. Pieces of tusks shaped into sled runners were 

 seen by Gilmore, and he also saw some sections formed into 

 weights for working salmon nets. A notable by-product 

 of this Alaskan ivory is a blue dye derived by the Eskimo 

 from the blue phosphate of lime (vivianite) formed by the 

 decomposition of some of the tusks.* 



The effect of an endless chain of newspaper items, lead- 

 ing on to the production of a cleverly written hoax retailing 

 the killing of a living mammoth in Alaska, is related by 

 Dr. F. A. Lucas in his "Animals of the Past." It appears 

 that when, twenty or more years ago, the United States 

 revenue cutter Corwin was anchored at Kotzebue Sound 

 in Alaska, the natives of this region, which is rich in re- 

 mains of the extinct mammoth, brought many fine speci- 

 mens on board to sell to the visitors. When questioned as 

 to the origin of the remains these native Innuits replied 

 without hesitation that no living mammoth had ever been 

 seen, and then asked their white questioners whether the 

 latter had ever seen these animals. As chance would have 

 it, there was on board a cop}^ of one of the reports of the 

 Petrograd Geographical Society, containing a represen- 

 tation of the great mammoth skeleton set up in the 

 Petrograd Museum of Natural Historj^ This was shown 

 to the natives, and they were delighted to be able to rec- 

 ognize the long curving tusks with which they had grown 

 familiar. As the skeleton, however, did not quite satisfy 

 them and they begged to have a picture of a living animal. 

 Dr. C. H. Townsend took pity on them, and having passed 

 some time in Ward's establishment in Rochester when a 

 replica of the Stuttgart restoration of a mammoth was being 

 made, he sketched out on a sheet of paper the animal figure 



*Charles A. Gilmore, op. cit., pp. 28, 29. 



