251 
one of the giant beasts on which man gazed at some period with 
admiration ; we may possibly find that the era of his disappearance 
was, after all, not so very remote. An Egyptian text has recently 
been found * showing very clearly (having even the figure of an 
elephant to attest the reading) that Thothmes III., who must have 
reigned about 1700 B.C., killed in hunting 120 elephants for the 
sake of their tusks in the regions of Assyria. In the second century 
before our era, and probably long before, the Elephant had with- 
drawn to India, since Seleucus Nicanor then yielded certain pro- 
vinces bordering on India to King Sandracottus in exchange for 
500 elephants. 
34. Now history is just as silent about elephants being found on 
the banks of the Euphrates as of mammoths on the banks of the 
Yenisei, at the same period. The former statement seems more 
difficult of credence than would be the latter. Chemical considera- 
tions render it very difficult to credit the continuous preservation 
of decomposing animal remains not even always imbedded in ice, for 
such a period as is supposed. f 
35. It is said of an animal described in the Book of Job,J 
same spot, he observed that the mass was freer from ice ; but it was not 
till the fifth year that the ice had melted sufficiently to disengage the 
mammoth, when it fell over on its side upon a bank of sand. He then 
cut off the tusks, which he bartered for goods to the value of 50 roubles 
(<£11. 5s.), with a Russian merchant. Being satisfied with this, the car- 
case was left to be devoured by the bears, wolves, and foxes, except what 
the Yakouts in the neighbourhood cut off to feed their dogs. Previous to 
this, indeed, he had a rude drawing made of it, which represents it with 
pointed ears, very small eyes, horse’s hoofs, and a bristly mane extending 
along the whole of its back. In this it has the appearance of something 
between a pig and an elephant. In 180G Mr. Adams, of Petersburg, 
fortunately heard of the circumstance, and repaired to the spot, and re- 
moved the least damaged parts to the museum at St. Petersburg. What 
remained of the skin was so heavy that ten persons had great difficulty 
in carrying it to the seaside, in order to stretch it on logs of wmod. The 
tusks, each of which was 1^ toise (9^ feet long), weighed 10 pouds 
(400 lb.), and the entire animal measured 4| archines (10£ feet), by 
7 (10| feet), long. A most remarkable thing is that it appears to have been 
devoid of a trunk . — From Pantologia, 1819, sub voc. Megatherium. 
* Chabas, Etudes, &c., p. 574. 
+ “ En 1804 on en trouva un sur les bords de la Neva, si bien conserve 
qiCon peut encore en faire manger les chairs. Aussi frappe de cette con- 
servation, le savant naturaliste d’Orbigny a etd porte a revoquer en doute 
l’anciennete du mammouth ; il ne pense pas qu’il puisse dater de cinq ou 
six mille ans, et croit meme qu’il vit encore dans quelque localite ignoree.” 
— Chabas, Stat. prehist., p. 571. 
+ Job xl. 15. In Dr. Latham’s Dictionary of the English Language I 
find mammoth derived from the Arabic behemoth. This “ the editor suggests 
from the fact of Arabic intercourse with the natives of the northern parts 
of Siberia ; being a fact of which there is evidence in the history of com- 
merce, and in the discovery of Cufic coins on the Obi ; whilst, philo- 
