150 



THE OOLOGIST. 



ice, and it was owing to a slight melt- 

 ing of the surface enabled him to see 

 the strange hoary relic of a vanished 

 age. The discovery was promptly an- 

 nounced at St. Petersburg by way of 

 Yukutsk, and Dr. Otto Herz of the Im- 

 perial museum was immediately sent 

 with a numerous party to procure, if 

 possible, the body entire. To accom- 

 plish this he was given a company of 

 Cossack troopers commanded by a 

 lieutenant and fifty horses for trans- 

 port. A tremendous journey over 

 trackless mountains and swamps was 

 undertaken, and the. spot finally reach- 

 ed. To quote Dr. Herz's own words, 

 he says: 



"We were at a loss to proceed furth- 

 er, for the maps of the district are 

 not detailed, and we found ourselves 

 in the midst of a vast number of ex- 

 actly similar ice mounds. Finally, my 

 nostrils detected a strange odor, and 

 it occurred to me that it might be the 

 flesh of the monster which had be- 

 meco uncovered and was decompos- 

 ing. By dint of walking in the direc- 

 tion whence the smell seemed to come 

 I finally located the grave. In my ex- 

 citement I ran the last mile of the 

 way, against the fast increasing 

 stench. At the grave I found a faith- 

 ful Cossack, who for fifty days had 

 stood guard over the carcass at the 

 command of his superior officer. He 

 had covered it entirely over with dry 

 soil to a depth of three feet, but even 

 through this protection the smell 

 made its way." 



Dr. Herz who took the photograph 

 reproduced above, describes the long 

 hair and thickness of hide of the mam- 

 moth and how the stomach was found 

 full of undigested food. The attitude 

 in which he was found shows that he 

 met his death by slipping on a slope, 

 for his rear legs are bent up so that 

 it would be impossible for him to 

 raise himself. Dr. Herz writes: 



"The impromptu grave into which 



the animal was plunged was made of 

 sand and clay, and his fall probably 

 caused masses of neighboring soil to 

 loosen and cover him completely. 

 This happened in the late aVitumn or 

 at the beginning of the winter, to 

 judge by the vegetable matter found 

 in the stomach; at any rate, shortly 

 afterward the grave became flooded, 

 ice following. This completed the 

 cold storage, still further augmented 

 by vast accumulations of soil all 

 round — a shell of ice hundreds of feet 

 thick inclosed by yards of soil that, 

 remains frozen for the greater part 

 of the year. Thus the enormous car- 

 cass was preserved for how long no 

 one knows through hundreds of cen- 

 turies perhaps, until not so many 

 years; ago some movement of the 

 earth spat forth the fossil mausoleum, 

 leaving it exposed gradually, the ice 

 crust wore off and revealed to the 

 passing Cossack the long hidden 

 treasure." 



The mammoth whose appearance 

 in the flesh has been so wonderfully 

 preserved, appears to have died out 

 completely before the advent of what 

 are known as neolithic times. Thus- 

 his remains (teeth and bones) are 

 found along with very old human re- 

 mains of the early stone age, and a 

 life-like and unmistakable engraving 

 of a mammoth has recently been dis- 

 covered in the Grotto of Combarelles- 

 in France. How far early man as- 

 sisted in the disappearance of the 

 mammoths is not an easy matter ac- 

 curately to determine. Baron Toll, 

 who has studied buried glaciers of the 

 glacial period in Siberia, comes to the 

 conclusion that "the mammoths and 

 the other contemporary mammals 

 lived on the spots where we find 

 their relics. They died out owing to 

 a change in the physico-geographical 

 conditions of the region. The bodies 

 of these mammals which have not 

 died in consequence of some sudden 

 catrastrophe were deposited in a 

 cold region partly on river terraces 

 and partly on the shores of lakes and 

 on the surfaces of glaciers, and there 

 were gradually buried in loam. They 

 have been preserved in the same way 

 as have been preserved the masses 

 of ice underneath owing to a perman- 

 ent, perhaps increasing cold." — Brook- 

 lyn Eagle. 



