CHAP. IX.J 
THE MAMMOTH. 
399 
were the proper homeland of this animal, and there it must at 
one time have wandered about in large herds. 
The same, or a closely allied species of elephant, also occurred 
in North America, in England, France, Switzerland, Germany, 
and North Russia. Indeed, even in Sweden and Finland incon¬ 
siderable mammoth remains have sometimes been found.^ But 
while in Europe only some more or less inconsiderable remains 
of bones are commonly to be found, in Siberia we meet not only 
with whole skeletons, but also whole animals frozen in the 
earth, with solidified blood, flesh, hide, and hair. Hence we 
may draw the conclusion that the mammoth died out, speaking 
geologically, not so very long ago. This is besides confirmed by 
a remarkable antiquarian discovery made in France. Along 
with a number of roughly worked flint flakes, pieces of ivory 
were found, on which, among other things, a mammoth with 
trunk, tusks, and hair was engraved in rough but unmistak¬ 
able lineaments, and in a style resembling that which distin¬ 
guishes the Chukch drawings, copies of which will be found 
further on in this work. This drawing, whose genuineness 
appears to be proved, surpasses in age, perhaps a hundredfold, 
the oldest monuments that Egypt has to show, and forms a re¬ 
markable proof that the mammoth, the original of the drawing, 
lived in Western Europe contemporaneously with man. The 
mammoth remains are thus derived from a gigantic animal form, 
living in former times in nearly all the lands now civilized, and 
whose carcase is not yet everywhere completely decomposed. 
Hence the great and intense interest which attaches to all that 
concerns this wonderful animal. 
If the interpretation of an obscure passage in Pliny be correct, 
mammoth ivory has, from the most ancient times, formed a 
^ Further information on this point is given by A. J. Malmgren in 
a paper on the occurrence and extent of mammoth-finds, and on the 
conditions of this animal’s existence in former times {Finska Vet.-Soc. 
Forhandl. 1874—5). i 
