162 THE TIME OF THE MAMMOTHS. 
addition to the greater length of the tusks the mammoth was 
distinguished from the elephants of to-day by the long hair 
which hung in a coarse mane from the neck and along the 
belly, nearly dragging on the ground. This shaggy envelope 
of hair must have added duse to the apparent size and 
formidable appearance of this giant. 
We know less about the appearance of the mastodon than 
the elephant proper. Their proportions were evidently not 
more widely different than those of our domesticated bull and 
the buffalo. The mastodons were probably never over eleven 
feet high. They had straight tusks, as have our modern 
elephants, their grinding teeth, which exhibit the most char- 
acteristic differences, separating them from their larger rela- 
tives, were fitted for the grinding of rougher food. From 
the extreme frequency of the occurrence of the remains of 
the mastodon in the swamps of the West, it seems likely that 
this form of elephant was peculiarly suited to exist in such 
regions. 
There can be no doubt that a few thousand years ago these 
companion giants roamed through the forests and along 
the streams of the Mississippi Valley. They fed upon a veg- 
etation not materially different from that now existing there. 
Replace them in the primeval forests of that region and 
their wants would be as well supplied as when they were 
lords of the domain. The fragments of wood which one 
finds beneath their bones seem to be of the common species 
of existing trees; even the reeds and other swamp plants 
which are imbedded with their remains are apparently the- 
same as those which now spring in the soil. The naturalist, 
accustomed as he is to behold the mysterious changes of life, 
where races sink at once into a common grave, and the face 
of earth prepared for other actors in the great tragedy of 
existence, cannot but feel more keenly than before the tem- 
porary character of all life when he opens to the light of 
day the resting place of one of those species of gigantic ani- 
mals. What eoid have been the nature of Sante agents 
