360 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



Bones of the extinct American elephant have also been 

 brought to light in many different parts of the State of 

 California. Probably the most valuable discovery of this 

 kind was that of a complete fossil skeleton found near 

 Fresno River, in a solid bed of yellow clay, at a locality 

 twenty miles distant from Millerton, the county seat of 

 Fresno County. This was carefully examined and studied 

 by Dr. E. C. Winchell in 1866. The skull, vertebrae, and 

 tail bones lay in the relative natural order over a space 20 

 ft. in length; the skull itself measured 4 ft. in length and 2 

 ft. in width. The jaw bore two massive black tusks, 6 ft. 

 4 in. long, having a pronounced outward curve so that the 

 tips were from four to five feet apart. The diameters at 

 the base, and for 4 ft. 6 in. of the length, were 6 in. ; from this 

 spot the tusk tapered to a point. The black surface colora- 

 tion was a quarter of an inch thick, the interior of the tusk 

 being white, and did not appear to have been caused by any 

 ingredient in the soil. Every effort was made to remove the 

 tusks uninjured from the enclosing clay, but unsuccessfully, 

 as they crumbled away when the slightest pressure was 

 exerted.* 



Of the final disappearance of both mastodon and elephant 

 from North America, which Professor Winchell regards as due 

 to "those subtle and little understood influences that bring 

 about changes in the nature of the organic life of various 

 regions of the earth," he saysij 



"It would be difficult to find a more striking example of 

 the working of this mysterious cause than is presented in 

 the entire disappearance of the mastodon and elephant, al- 

 most during the historic period, and very nearly at the 



*J. D. Whitney, "The Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevada of California"; Mem. of 

 the Mus. of Comp. Zool. at Harvard College, Vol. VI, No. 1 (1st Pt.), Cambridge. 1879, 

 pp. 254, 255. 



tJ. D. Whitney, "The Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevada of California"; Mem. of 

 Como. Zool. at Harvard College, Vol. VI, No. 1 (1st Pt.), Cambridge, 1879, pp. 320, 321 



