MAMMOTHS AND MASTODONS 127 



about the Mammoths and the Mastodons is that 

 they finally disappeared completely. The elephants 

 of to-day are, of course, their descendants, but none 

 of them live in the countries where the Mammoths 

 and the Mastodons were the most numerous. 

 America, Europe, and the British Isles probably 

 contained millions of these gigantic beasts. Yet 

 they entirely disappeared and no one has yet 

 been able to give a satisfactory reason for this dis- 

 appearance. Some men think that the climate of 

 the whole world suddenly became so cold that the 

 elephants could not survive the change. Others 

 believe that early man hunted both the Mammoths 

 and the Mastodons until all were killed. But 

 as Europe is the only place in which proofs have 

 been found that early man and the Mammoth lived 

 at the same time, and as no such proofs have been 

 discovered in any country, regarding the Mastodon, 

 there seems little reason for saying that these ele- 

 phants became extinct because of man. 



