EXTINCTION OF THE MAMMOTH — NEUVILLE. 337 
recent elephants ; it must be very ancient and has probably appeared 
coincidently with the differentiating of the proboscidian type, as has 
probably been the case with certain other characters which are very 
special and even very aberrant. The strangest of these is, I think, 
the obliteration of the pleural cavities which the Asiatic and Afri- 
can elephants normally show from the time of birth (it appears 
rather late in the fetus) and which is peculiar to them. 
To sum up: So long as the external environment was favorable 
enough to permit the mammoth not to suffer from the causes of in- 
feriority with which it was afflicted the evolution of the species was 
able to go on not only without incumbrance but with enough vigor 
to have temporarily assured the dominance of these creatures, whose 
gigantic size reached perhaps that of the most formidable living ele- 
phants, which may measure nearly 4 meters at the withers.^'' What 
a difference between such individuals and the one found by Count 
Stenbok-Fermor's prospectors. Were such representatives the de- 
generate descendants of the first? It is possible. It would even be 
tempting to say that it is probable. However, let us be prudent on 
this subject, and to fortify ourselves in this prudence let us try to 
calculate the conditions under which identical questions will present 
themselves to the paleontologists of the future. 
" Mr. Boule has called my attention to the fact that it is best to accept only with the 
greatest reserve some of the statements which attribute a gigantic size to the mammoth. 
The question is worth looking into, and in order to throw some light on it I think I should 
here offer some numerical data. 
It was formerly agreed that the mammoth might exceed 5 meters at the withers and 
might bear tusks 7 meters long, each weighing about 200 kilograms ; there was here 
apparently a certain amount of exaggeration and, in some instances at least, a confusion 
between E. primigenius and other extinct proboscidians. In opposition to these exaggera- 
tions it has been asserted that the stature of the mammoth did not exceed that of the 
recent Asiatic elephant. (Woodward, Outlines of Palaeontology, Cambridge, 189S, p. 307 : 
" The extinct species (mammoth) does not appear to have exceeded the modern Indian 
elephant in size.") The maximum height of this latter species, at the shoulder, is about 
2.9 meters, a maximum rarely attained, however. According to their mounted skeletons 
the Adams mammoth, from the mouth of the Lena, measures a little more than 3 meters 
at the shoulder, and Count Stenbok-Fermor's specimen .from the Liakhof Islands — that is, 
from a somewhat more northern deposit — measures only 2.5 meters. 
Bnt it can not be questioned that other mammoths (I am here considering only the 
Siberian mammoths which are found actually frozen) reached a greater size. Leaving 
aside all statements which I can not support by authentic measurements, I shall limit 
myself to pointing out some data furnished by the size of the tusks. 
There is no constant relation between the size of a proboscidian and that of its tusks ; 
very large individuals may have very small tusks. But the inverse is not true ; an 
elephant of very small size could not bear the burden of very large tusks. I should hasten 
to add that even here no rule of proportion can be established, and the case of the 
mammoth is, I think, the proof of this. According to standards furnished by the recent 
elephants, the mammoth, I repeat, bore tusks which were entirely out at proportion with 
its stature. (See above, p. 333.) But admitting this, it appears to me impossible not to 
regard certain gigantic mammoth tusks as having belonged to animals whose size was 
greater than that of the Adams and Stenbok-Fermor specimens. Ward's Eecords mention 
a mammoth tusk 3.65 meters long and 0.48 meters in maximum circumference, and 
another 3.35 meters long, 0.53 meters in circumference, and weighing 79 kilograms. These 
measurements are already much above those furnished by Asiatic elephants, with a 
maximum length of 2.71 meters, a maximum circumference of 0.445 meters, and a maxi- 
mum weight of 48 kilograms. But a mammoth tusk which may be seen in the galleries of 
