PORTRAITS OF MAMMOTHS 



33 



supported by wooden poles. They are called " tectiforms " 

 by the French explorers. 



The bones and teeth of the mammoth are very 

 common in the river gravels and clays of Western 

 Europe and England, and 

 a complete skull, with its 

 tusks, dug up at Ilford, in 

 the east of London, is in the 

 Natural History Museum. 

 Frozen carcasses of this 

 animal are found in Northern 

 Siberia, and two showing 

 much of the skin and hair 

 are in the museum of 

 Petrograd. There is no 

 tradition or knowledge of 

 the mammoth among living 

 races of men. The natives 

 of Siberia, who have from 

 time immemorial done a 

 large trade in the ivory, 



regard the tusks as "horns," Fig. io. — A, similar engraving 



and have stories about the 

 ghosts of the mammoth, but 

 no tradition of it as a living 

 beast. The mammoth was 

 closer to the Indian elephant 

 of to-day than to the African 

 one. It had, as these draw- 

 ings show, a pelt of long hair. Indian elephants from 

 upland regions often have a good deal of hair all 

 over the body: and the newborn young of both the 

 Indian and African elephant has a complete coat of 

 hair. The drawings here reproduced are not only of 

 thrilling interest because they are the work of remotely 

 3 



from the cave of Combarelles. 

 B, Mammoth enclosed by plank- 

 like structure — supposed to be 

 either a cage or a trap. (Called 

 tectiform structures, and often seen 

 in these wall engravings.) From 

 the cave of Bernifal, five miles 

 from Eyzies. 



