Chapter 10

[56]So named by Sir R. Owen, in reference to the sculptured aspect of the grinding surface of the teeth. Greek—glupho, I carve;odous, odontos, tooth.

[57]Greek—Hoplon, armour;phero, I bear.

In Glyptodon asper (Plate XIX.), the scutes of the carapace had a beautiful rosette-like sculpture, while the sheath of the tail was entirely composed of a series of movable rings, ornamented with large projecting tubercles. The vertebræ of the backbone are almost entirely fused together into a long tube, and also are joined to the under surface of the great shield, to which the ribs are united. The cheek-teeth are sixteen in number, four above and four below on each side. These are channelled with two broad and deep grooves, which divide the surface into three distinct lobes. Hence the name of the animal.

The tessellated carapace of the Glyptodon was at first thought to belong to the Megatherium, with which the remains were associated, but Professor Owen clearly demonstrated the impossibility of this idea.

Fig. 51represents Glyptodon clavipes (Owen) from the Pleistocene deposits of Buenos Ayres; but the reader will gain a much better idea of the animal by inspecting the splendid specimen of Glyptodon asper in the Natural History Museum, near the centre window at the east end of the Pavilion (Glass-case Q on plan).

Plate XIX.is a restoration of another species by our artist.[58]

[58]This plate is based on a beautiful drawing in a Spanish work,Anales del Museo publico Buenos Aires. G. Burmeister, M.D., Phil. D. Tomo Segundo.

In the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons (which the reader is recommended to visit) there are several most valuable specimens of these extinct armadillos from South America.

Fig. 51.—Extinct Gigantic Armadillo,Glyptodon clavipes, from Pleistocene deposits, Buenos Ayres. (The tail sheath here represented probably belongs to another genus, Hoplophorus.)

Armadillos belong, with sloths and ant-eaters, to the same family of so-called toothless animals (edentata) with no front teeth, though one or two forms really are toothless. Those of the present day have their bony armour divided up into a series of bands, so that they can roll themselves up, more or less, into balls. They burrow under the ground, where they get their food to a certain extent, and live a safe life, protected by their casqueof mail. Their only enemies seem to be the monkeys, and one of the tricks of the young monkeys in the American forests is, when they find an armadillo away from home, to pull its tail unmercifully, and try to drag it about. Snakes cannot hurt them. Mr. Hudson, in his most interesting book,A Naturalist in La Plata, narrates how he watched an armadillo kill a snake and then devour it.

If we examine the anatomy of the armadillo, we shall find that its bones greatly resemble those of the sloth, but still there are a few differences. It is a burrowing animal, and therefore requires great power of scratching and tearing the ground. Why the colossal forms of armadillo should have become extinct and only small ones survived to the present time, is one of the many and perplexing problems presented by the study of extinct animals. One would have thought from its size and strength that the Glyptodon had been built, like Rome, for eternity.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE MAMMOTH.

“Yes, where the huntsman winds his matin horn,And the couched hare beneath the covert trembles;Where shepherds tend their flocks, and grow their cornWhere fashion in our gay Parade assembles—Wild horses, deer, and elephants have strayed,Treading beneath their feet old Ocean’s races.”

Horace Smith.

Many are the traditions and tales that have clustered round the Mammoth.[59]He is, however, no fabulous product of the imagination, like the dragon, for he has actually been seen in the flesh, and not onlyseen, but eaten, both by men and animals! But, for all that, men’s minds have been busy for centuries past making up tales, often of the wildest description, about him; and it is little wonder that a creature whose bones are found in the soils and gravels, etc., over more than half the world, and whose body has been seen frozen in Siberian ice, should have given rise to many tales and superstitions. To students of folk-lore these legends are of considerable interest, and to some extent also tomen of science. To the latter, however, one of its many points of interest is that palæontology may be said to have been founded on the Mammoth. Cuvier, the illustrious founder of the science of organic remains, was enabled, by his accurate and minute knowledge of the structures of living animals, to prove to his astonished contemporaries that the Mammoth bones and teeth, so plentifully discovered in Europe, were not such as could have belonged to any living elephant, and consequently that there must have existed, at some previous period in the world’s history, an elephant of a different kind, and quite unknown to naturalists. This was a new idea, and accordingly one that met with opposition as well as incredulity.

[59]The wordMammothis thought by Pallas and Nordenskiöld to be of Tartar origin. The former asserts that the name originated in the wordmamma, which signifies earth (the Mammoth being found frozen in the earth). It was introduced into the languages of Western Europe about two centuries ago, from the Russian. But other writers have attempted to prove that it is a corruption of the Arabic wordBehemoth, or “great beast,” which in the Book of Job signifies an unknown animal. In an ancient Chinese work, of the fifth century before Christ, it is spoken of under the nametien-schu, that is to say, “the mouse which hides itself.” The Chinese legends are referred to onp. 199.

It was thought in those days that whatever animals lived in the pastmusthave resembled those now inhabiting the world, and the idea of extinct types unknown to man, and unknown to the regions where their bones were found embedded below the soil, was of so novel and startling a character as to appear incredible. Besides, the Mosaic account of Creation made no direct reference to extinct animals, and therefore the notion was not to be entertained.

It is amusing to note the devices to which people resorted in order to combat this revolutionary teaching. Thus, when Cuvier first announced the discovery of the fossil remains of the elephant, hippopotamus, and rhinoceros in the superficial deposits of continental Europe, he was gravely reminded of the elephants introduced into Italy by Pyrrhus in the Roman wars, and afterwards in the Roman triumphal processions or the games at the Colosseum.

It was only by means of minute anatomical differences that he was able to show that the bones and teeth of these elephants must have belonged to a species unlike those now living. But these differences proved too subtle for even scientific men to appreciate, so slight was their knowledge of anatomy compared with his; so that they were either disallowed or explained away.

But he was not to be beaten, and appealed to the fact thatsimilar remains occurred in Great Britain, whither neither Romans nor others could have introduced such animals. These are his words: “If, passing across the German Ocean, we transport ourselves into Britain, which in ancient history by its position could not have received many living elephants besides that one which Cæsar brought thither, according to Polycenus; we shall, nevertheless, find these fossils in as great abundance as on the Continent.”

Another crushing answer to the absurd explanations of Cuvier’s countrymen was added by the sagacious Dean Buckland, who pointed out that in England, as on the Continent, the remains of elephants are accompanied by the bones of the rhinoceros and hippopotamus, animals which not even Roman armies could have subdued or tamed! Owen also adds that the bones of fossil elephants are found in Ireland, where Cæsar’s army never set foot.

It was in 1796 that Cuvier announced that the teeth and bones of the European fossil elephants were distinct in species from both the African and the Indian elephant, the only two living species (El. africanus and El. indicus). This fundamental fact opened out to him new views about the creation of the world and its inhabitants, and a rapid glance over other fossil bones in his collection showed him the truth and the value of this great idea (namely, the existence of extinct types), to which he consecrated the rest of his life. Thus palæontology may be said to have been founded on the Mammoth.

The fossil remains of elephants have, on account of their common occurrence in various parts of the world, attracted a great deal of attention, both from the learned and the unlearned. In the North of Europe they have been found in Ireland, in Germany; in Central Europe, in Poland, Middle and South Russia, Greece, Spain, Italy; also in Africa, and over a large part of Asia. In the New World they have been found abundantly in North America. But in the frozen regions of Siberia its tusks, teeth, and bones are met with in very greatabundance. According to Pallas, the great Russian savant, there is not in the whole of Asiatic Russia, from the Don to the extremity of the Tchutchian promontory, any brook or river on the banks of which some bones of elephants and other animals foreign to these regions have not been found. The primæval elephants (Mammoth, Mastodon, etc.) appear to have formerly ranged over the whole northern hemisphere of the globe, from the fortieth parallel to the sixtieth, and possibly to near the seventieth degree of latitude.

Just as the North American Indian regards the great bones of Professor Marsh’s extinct Eocene mammals that peep out from the sides of buttes and cañons, as belonging to his ancestors, so we find that in all parts of the world the bones of extinct elephants have, on account of their great size (and partly from a certain resemblance, in some, to bones of the human skeleton), been regarded as testifying to the former existence of giants, heroes, and demigods. To the present day the Hindoos consider such remains as belonging to theRakshas, or Titans,—beings that figure largely in their ancient writings. Theophrastus, of Lesbos, a pupil of Aristotle, appears to have been the first to record the discovery of fossil ivory and bones. These were probably obtained by the country people from certain deposits in the neighbourhood, and are mentioned five hundred years later by Pausanias. Several Greek legends and traditions appear to be founded on such discoveries.

Thus the Greeks mistook the knee-bone of an elephant for that of Ajax. In like manner the supposed body of Orestes, thirteen feet in length, discovered by the Spartans at Tegea, doubtless was the skeleton of some elephant. In the isle of Rhodes, in Sicily, and near Palmero, Syracuse, and at many other places, similar remains have afforded a basis for stories of giants. In fact, so much has been said by old writers on this subject, that whole volumes might be filled with such matter. Let one or two examples suffice.

In the year 1613 some workmen in a sand-pit near the castle of Chaumont, not far from St. Antoine, found some bones (probably of the Mammoth or Mastodon) of the nature of which they were entirely ignorant, and many of them they broke up. But a certain surgeon named Mazuyer, hearing of the discovery, bought the bones, and announced that he had himself discovered them in a tomb thirty feet long, bearing in Gothic characters the inscription, “Teutobochus Rex.” This was a barbarian king who invaded Gaul at the head of the Cimbri, and was defeated near Aix, in Provence, by Marius, who brought him to Rome to grace his triumphal procession. Mazuyer reminded his credulous readers that, according to the testimony of Roman authors, the head of this king was larger than any of the trophies borne upon the lances in triumph, and for a time his marvellous story was accepted. The skeleton of this pretended giant-king was exhibited in many cities of France and Germany, and also before Louis XII., who took great interest in it. The imposture was detected and exposed by Riolan, and thus a great controversy arose, and numerous pamphlets were written on both sides. The skeleton remained at Bordeaux till the year 1832, when it was sent to the Museum of Natural History at Paris, where it may still be seen. It is needless to say that, on its arrival there, M. Blainville at once recognised it as being that of an elephant—a Mastodon, in fact.

Another giant-story may be narrated as follows. In the year 1577 some large bones were discovered, through the uprooting of an oak by a storm, in the Canton of Lucerne, in Switzerland. These bones were afterwards declared by the celebrated physician and professor at Basle, Felix Plater, to be those of a giant. This learned man estimated the height of the giant at nineteen feet! and made a drawing thereof, which he sent to Lucerne. The bones have since nearly all vanished, but Blumenbach, at the beginning of this century, saw enough of them to prove their elephantine nature. The good people of Lucerne, however,being reluctant to abandon their giant, have, since the sixteenth century, made him the supporter of their city arms.

The Church of St. Christopher, at Valence, possessed an elephant’s tooth, which was shown as the tooth of St. Christopher. As this relic was “bigger than a man’s fist,” it is difficult to picture what idea the people entertained of their saint!

In 1564 two peasants observed on the banks of the Rhone, along a slope, some great bones sticking out of the ground. These they carried to the neighbouring village, where they were examined by Cassanion, who lived at Valence, and was the author of a treatise on giants (De Gigantibus). Cuvier concluded from this writer’s description of the tooth that it belonged to an elephant.

Otto de Guericke, famous as the inventor of the air-pump, in 1663 witnessed the discovery of a fossil elephant, with its tusks preserved. These he mistook for horns; so did even the illustrious Leibnitz, who created out of his own imagination a strange animal, with a great horn in the middle of its forehead, as the creature to which these remains belonged! One is reminded of Bret Harte’s amusingjeu d’esprit, The Society upon the Stanislaus—

“Then Brown he read a paper, and he reconstructed there,From those same bones, an animal that was extremely rare;”

and how the members of this learned society came to blows over their fossil bones, and hurled them at one another—“till the skull of an old mammoth caved the head of Thomson in.” But in this case, the “animal that was extremely rare” was believed in for a long time, and Leibnitz’s “fossil unicorn” was universally accepted throughout Germany for more than thirty years. At last, however, a complete skeleton of a Mammoth was discovered, and recognised as belonging to an elephant; but the unicorn was not given up without a keen controversy.[60]

[60]The writer is indebted for much of the information here given with regard to the discoveries of Mammoth bones, and legends founded thereon, to M. Figuier’sWorld before the Deluge.

Near the city of Constadt, in the year 1700, a great quantity of bones and tusks of elephants were discovered, after excavations had been made by order of the reigning duke, who had been informed by a soldier of Würtemberg of the presence of bones in the soil. In this way some sixty tusks were unearthed. The whole ones were preserved, but those which were broken were given to the Court physician, who made use of them for medicinal purposes. After this the “Ebur fossile,” or “Unicornu fossile,” was freely used by the German doctors, until the discovery of the bone-caves of the Hartz, when it became too abundant to pass for true unicorn, and consequently lost much of its repute.

In our own country elephantine remains have also given rise to strange tales. The village of Walton, near Harwich, is famous for the abundance of Mammoth remains, which lie along the base of the sea-cliffs, mixed with the bones of horses, oxen, and deer. “The more bulky of these fossils,” says Professor Owen, “appear to have early attracted the notice of the curious. Lambard, in hisDictionary, says that ‘in Queen Elizabeth’s time bones were found, at Walton, of a man whose skull would contain five pecks, and one of his teeth as big as a man’s fist, and weighed ten ounces. These bones had sometimes bodies, not of beasts, but of men, for the difference is manifest.’”

According to the same authority, there is reason to believe that instances have occurred in Great Britain in which, with due care and attention, a more or less entire skeleton of the Mammoth might have been secured. He mentions the case of the discovery of a number of Mammoth bones by some workmen in a brick-ground, near the village of Grays, in Essex. But most unfortunately, in their ignorance, they broke up these valuable relics, and sold the fragments, for three half-pence a pound, to a dealer in old bones! This somewhat lucrative traffic went on for over half a year before the matter came to the notice of Mr. R. Ball, F.G.S., who recovered some fine bones from the men, and thus rescued them from the destruction that awaited them.

It is greatly to be hoped that some day our National Treasure House at South Kensington may be enriched with a complete Mammoth skeleton from British soil.

The Chinese, as might be expected, heard of the Mammoth long before Europeans did, and they have some strange stories about it. In the northern part of Siberia, so great is the abundance of Mammoth tusks, that for a very long period there has been a regular export of Mammoth ivory, both eastward to China and westward to Europe. Even in the middle of the tenth century an active trade was carried on at Khiva in fossil ivory, which was fashioned into combs, vases, and other objects, as related by an Arab writer of that time. Middendorf reckoned that the number of fossil tusks which have yearly come into the market, during the last two centuries, has been at least a hundred pairs—an estimate which Nordenskiöld considers as well within the mark. They are found all along the line of the shore between the mouth of the Obi and Behring Straits, and the further north a traveller goes, the more numerous does he find them. The soil of Bear Island and of the Liachoff Islands (New Siberia) is said to consist only of sand and ice with such quantities of Mammoth bones that it appears as if they were almost made up of bones and tusks. Every summer numbers of fishermen make for these islands to collect fossil ivory, and during the winter immense caravans return laden with Mammoth tusks. The convoys are drawn by dogs, and in this way the ivory reaches both the ancient Eastern and the newer Western markets.

It is evident from the Chinese legends that the frozen bodies of Mammoths have for ages past been either seen by, or reported to, members of the celestial empire, for it is mentioned in some of their old books as an animal that lives underground. In a great Chinese work on natural history, written in the sixteenth century, the following quaint description occurs: "The animal namedtien-schu, of which we have already spoken, in the ancient work upon the ceremonial entitledLyki[a work of the fifth centurybefore Christ] is called alsofyn-schu, oryn-schu, that is to say, ‘the mouse that hides itself.’ It always lives in subterranean caverns; it resembles a mouse, but is of the size of a buffalo or ox. It has no tail; its colour is dark; it is very strong, and excavates caverns in places full of rocks and forests." Another writer says, “Thefyn-schuhaunts obscure and unfrequented places. It dies as soon as it is exposed to the rays of the sun or moon; its feet are short in proportion to its size, which causes it to walk badly. Its tail is a Chinese ell in length. Its eyes are small, and its neck short. It is very stupid and sluggish. When the inundations of the riverTamschuann-tuytook place [in 1571] a great manyfyn-schuappeared in the plain; it fed on the roots of the plantfu-kia.”

An old Russian traveller, who, in 1692, was sent by Peter the Great as ambassador to the Emperor of China, mentions the discovery of the heads and legs of Mammoths in frozen soil. After referring to these discoveries, he says, "Concerning this animal there are very different reports. The heathens of Jakutsk, Tungus, and Ostiaks say that they continually, or at least, by reason of the very hard frosts, mostly live underground, where they go backwards and forwards; to confirm which they tell us that they have often seen the earth heaved up when one of these beasts was upon the march, and, after he passed, the place sink in, and thereby make a deep pit. They further believe that if this animal comes so near to the surface of the frozen earth as to smell the air, he immediately dies, which they say is the reason that several of them are found dead on the high banks of the river, where they unawares came out of the ground. This is the opinion of the infidels concerning these beasts, which are never seen. But the old Siberian Russians affirm that the Mammoth is very like the elephant, with this difference only, that the teeth of the former are firmer, and not so straight as those of the latter.... By all I could gather from the heathens, no person ever saw one of these beasts alive, or can give any account of its shape; sothat all we heard said on this subject arises from bare conjecture only."

But making all allowance for the gross absurdities of these accounts, it is clear that they are based on descriptions—probably by the Tungusian fishermen—of carcases that have been washed out of the frozen soil by rivers in flood time. Now that we are in possession of trustworthy accounts, we can understand how these strange tales arose among an ignorant and superstitious people, such as the fishermen of these inhospitable shores.

We will now put before the reader the true accounts given by Adams[61]and Benkendorf.

[61]Abridged fromMemoirs of the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg, vol. v. London, 1819.

In 1799 a Tungusian, named Schumachoff, who generally went to hunt and fish at the peninsula of Tamut after the fishing season of the Lena was over, had constructed for his wife some cabins on the banks of the lake Oncoul, and had embarked to seek along the coasts for Mammoth tusks. One day he saw among the blocks of ice a shapeless mass, but did not then discover what it was. In 1800 he perceived that this object was more disengaged from the ice, and that it had two projecting parts; and towards the end of the summer of 1801 the entire side of the animal and one of his tusks were quite free from ice. In 1803 the enormous mass fell by its own weight on a bank of sand. It was a frozen Mammoth! In 1804 Schumachoff came to his Mammoth, and having cut off the tusks, exchanged them with a merchant for goods. Two years afterwards Mr. Adams, the narrator of the story, traversed these distant and desert regions, and found the Mammoth still in the same place, but sadly mutilated. The people of the neighbourhood had cut off the flesh, and fed their dogs with it during the scarcity. Wild beasts, such as white bears, wolves, and foxes, also had fed on it, and the traces of their footsteps were seen around. The skeleton was completeall except one leg, but the flesh had almost all gone. The head was covered with a dry skin, one of the ears was seen to be covered with a tuft of hairs. All these parts suffered more or less injury in transport for a distance of 7330 miles to St. Petersburg, yet the eyes have been preserved. This Mammoth was a male, with a long mane on its neck, but both tail and proboscis had disappeared. The skin is of a dark grey colour, covered with a reddish wool and black hairs. The entire carcase was nine feet four inches high. The skin of the side on which the carcase had lain was detached by Mr. Adams, for it was well preserved, but so heavy was it that ten persons found great difficulty in transporting it to the shore. The white bears, while devouring the flesh, had trodden into the ground much of the hair belonging to the carcase, but Mr. Adams was able by digging to procure about sixty pounds' weight of hair. In a few days the work was completed, and he found himself in possession of a treasure which amply compensated him for the fatigues and dangers of the journey as well as the expense of the enterprise. When first seen, this Mammoth was embedded in clear pure ice, which forms in that coast escarpments of considerable thickness, sloping towards the sea, the top of which is covered with moss and earth. If the account of the Tungusians can be trusted, the carcase was some way below the surface of the ice when first seen. Arrived at Takutsk, Mr. Adams purchased a pair of tusks which he believed to belong to this Mammoth, but there is reason to doubt whether he did get the right tusks. They are nine feet six inches long.

Fig. 52.—Skeleton of Mammoth,Elephas primigenius(partly restored), in the Museum at Brussels. Drawn from a photograph, by J. Smit.

The skeleton of this specimen, the fame of which may be said to have spread all over the world, is now set up in the Museum of the St. Petersburg Academy, and the skin still remains attached to the head and feet. A part of the skin and some of the hair were sent by Mr. Adams to Sir Joseph Banks, who presented them to the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons.[62]A photograph of the skeleton as it now stands, may be seen on the wall of the big Geological Gallery at South Kensington (No. I. on plan), near the specimens of Mammoth tusks. But it should be pointed out thatthe tusks are put on the wrong way; for they curve outwards instead of inwards, thus presenting a somewhat grotesque appearance. For this reason we have not reproduced the familiar woodcut based on an engraving in the memoir already referred to.[63]But we give, instead, a sketch taken from a photograph (also on the wall in gallery No. I.) of a fine skeleton in the Brussels Museum (Fig. 52). Here the tusks are seen correctly inserted. We must also draw the reader’s attention to the remarkably fine specimen (glazed case E on plan) consisting of the skull and both tusks complete, found at Ilford in Essex.

[62]A specimen of the hair of a mammoth may be also seen at the Natural History Museum (pier case 31) in a tall glass jar. It came from frozen soil, Behring Strait. By the side of this will be seen, in a glass box, a portion of the skin of a mammoth, from the banks of the river Alaseja, Province of Yakutsk, Siberia. It exhibits the under fur, the long hair having entirely disappeared.

[63]Fig. 32 in Part I. of theGuide to the Exhibition Galleries in the Department of Geology and Palæontology in the British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Road. (Price 1s.) This most useful guide should be consulted by the reader.

Adams’s specimen was, Dr. Woodward thinks, an old individual, and its tusks had curved upwards so much as to be of little use. In younger ones they were less curved. The hair that still remains on the skin of the St. Petersburg specimen is of the colour of the camel, very thick-set and curled in locks. Bristles of a dark colour are interspersed, some reddish, and some nearly black. The colour of the skin is a dull black, as in living elephants (see restoration,Plate XX.).

Remains of the Mammoth (Elephas primigenius) have been found in great numbers in the British Isles. A list of localities (from Mr. Leith Adams’s monograph on fossil elephants) is given in the Appendix, but even this might be extended. Mr. Samuel Woodward calculated that upward of two thousand grinders of elephants have been dredged up during a period of thirteen years upon the oyster-bed off Hasborough, on the Norfolk coast. But many of these doubtless belong to other species of older date, such as Elephas antiquus.

Dr. Bree, of Colchester, says that the sea-bottom off Dunkirk, whence he has made a collection, is so full of mammalian remains that the sailors speak of it as “the Burying-ground.”

The remains of the Mammoth occur over a very large geographical area—fully half the globe.

By far the most important discovery of a frozen Mammoth is that of a young Russian engineer, Benkendorf by name, who was an eye-witness of its resurrection, though, most unfortunately, he was unable either to procure his specimen, as Mr. Adams did, or to make drawings of it. Being employed by the Russian Government in making a survey of the coast off the mouth of the Lena and Indigirka rivers, he was despatched up the latter river in 1846, in command of a small steam-cutter. The following is a translation of the account which he wrote to a friend in Germany.

Plate XX.

THE MAMMOTH, ELEPHAS PRIMIGENIUS.An inhabitant of Northern regions during the Great Ice Age.

“In 1846 there was unusually warm weather in the north of Siberia. Already in May unusual rains poured over the moors and bogs, storms shook the earth, and the streams carried not only ice to the sea, but also large tracts of land, thawed by the masses of warm water fed by the southern rains.... We steamed on the first favourable day up the Indigirka; but there were no thoughts of land; we saw around us only a sea of dirty brown water, and knew the river only by the rushing and roaring of the stream. The river rolled against us trees, moss, and large masses of peat, so that it was only with great trouble and danger that we could proceed. At the end of the second day, we were only about forty versts up the stream; some one had to stand with the sounding-rod in hand continually, and the boat received so many shocks that it shuddered to the keel. A wooden vessel would have been smashed. Around us we saw nothing but the flooded land for eight days. We met with the like hindrances until at last we reached the place where our Jakuti were to have met us. Further up was a place called Ujandina, whence the people were to have come to us; but they were not there, prevented evidently by the floods.

“As we had been there in former years, we knew the place. But how it had changed! The Indigirka, here about three versts wide, had torn up the land and worn itself a fresh channel; and when the waters sank we saw, to our astonishment, that the old river-bed had become merely that of an insignificant stream. This allowed me to cut through the soft earth, and we went reconnoitring up the new stream, which had worn its way westwards. Afterwards we landed on the new shore, and surveyed the undermining and destructive operation of the wild waters, that carried away, with extraordinary rapidity, masses of soft peat and loam. It was then that we made a wonderful discovery. The land on which we were treading was moorland, covered thickly with young plants. Many lovely flowers rejoiced the eye in the warm beams of the sun, that shone for twenty-two out of the twenty-fourhours. The stream rolled over and tore up the soft wet ground like chaff, so that it was dangerous to go near the brink. While we were all quiet, we suddenly heard under our feet a sudden gurgling and stirring, which betrayed the working of the disturbed waters. Suddenly our jäger, ever on the outlook, called loudly, and pointed to a singular and unshapely object, which rose and sank through the disturbed waters. I had already remarked it, but not given it any attention, considering it only drift-wood. Now we all hastened to the spot on the shore, had the boat drawn near, and waited until the mysterious thing should again show itself. Our patience was tried, but at last a black, horrible, giant-like mass was thrust out of the water, and we beheld a colossal elephant’s head, armed with mighty tusks, with its long trunk moving in the water in an unearthly manner, as though seeking for something lost therein. Breathless with astonishment, I beheld the monster hardly twelve feet from me, with his half-open eyes yet showing the whites. It was still in good preservation.

“‘A mammoth! a mammoth!’ broke out the Tschernomori; and I shouted, ‘Here, quickly. Chains and ropes!’ I will go over our preparations for securing the giant animal, whose body the water was trying to tear from us. As the animal again sank, we waited for an opportunity to throw the ropes over his neck. This was only accomplished after many efforts. For the rest we had no cause for anxiety, for after examining the ground I satisfied myself that the hind legs of the Mammoth still stuck in the earth, and that the waters would work for us to unloosen them. We therefore fastened a rope round his neck, threw a chain round his tusks, that were eight feet long, drove a stake into the ground about twenty feet from the shore, and made chain and rope fast to it. The day went by quicker than I thought for, but still the time seemed long before the animal was secured, as it was only after the lapse of twenty-four hours that the waters had loosened it. But the position of the animalwas interesting to me; it was standing in the earth, and not lying on its side or back as a dead animal naturally would, indicating by this the manner of its destruction. The soft peat or marsh land, on which he stepped thousands of years ago, gave way under the weight of the giant, and he sank as he stood on it, feet foremost, incapable of saving himself; and a severe frost came and turned him into ice, and the moor which had buried him. The latter, however, grew and flourished, every summer renewing itself. Possibly the neighbouring stream had heaped over the dead body plants and sand. God only knows what causes had worked for its preservation; now, however, the stream had brought it once more to light of day, and I, an ephemera of life compared with this primæval giant, was sent by Heaven just at the right time to welcome him. You can imagine how I jumped for joy.

“During our evening meal, our posts announced strangers—a troop of Jakuti came on their fast, shaggy horses. They were our appointed people, and were very joyful at the sight of us. Our company was augmented by them to about fifty persons. On showing them our wonderful capture, they hastened to the stream, and it was amusing to hear how they chattered and talked over the sight. The first day I left them in quiet possession, but when, on the following, the ropes and chains gave a great jerk, a sign that the Mammoth was quite freed from the earth, I commanded them to use their utmost strength and bring the beast to land. At length, after much hard work, in which the horses were extremely useful, the animal was brought to land, and we were able to roll the body about twelve feet from the shore. The decomposing effect of the warm air filled us all with astonishment.

“Picture to yourself an elephant with a body covered with thick fur, about thirteen feet in height, and fifteen in length, with tusks eight feet long, thick, and curving outward at their ends,[64]a stout trunk of six feet in length, colossal limbs of one and ahalf feet in thickness, and a tail, naked up to the end, which was covered with thick tufty hair. The animal was fat and well-grown; death had overtaken him in the fulness of his powers. His parchment-like, large, naked ears, lay fearfully turned over the head; about the shoulders and the back he had stiff hair, about a foot in length, like a mane. The long outer hair was deep brown and coarsely rooted. The top of the head looked so wild, and so penetrated with pich[65]that it resembled the rind of an old oak tree. On the sides it was cleaner, and under the outer hair there appeared everywhere a wool, very soft, warm and thick, and of a fallow-brown colour. The giant was well protected against the cold. The whole appearance of the animal was fearfully strange and wild. It had not the shape of our present elephants. As compared with our Indian elephants, its head was rough, the brain-case low and narrow, but the trunk and mouth were much larger. The teeth were very powerful. Our elephant is an awkward animal, but compared with this Mammoth it is as an Arabian steed to a coarse, ugly dray-horse. I could not divest myself of a feeling of fear as I approached the head; the broken, widely-open eyes, gave the animal an appearance of life, as though it might move in a moment and destroy us with a roar.... The bad smell of the body warned us that it was time to save of it what we could, and the swelling flood, too, bid us hasten. First of all we cut off the tusks, and sent them to the cutter. Then the people tried to hew off the head, but notwithstanding their good will, this work was slow. As the belly of the animal was cut open the intestines rolled out, and then the smell was so dreadful that I could not overcome my nauseousness, and was obliged to turn away. But I had the stomach separated, and brought on one side. It was well filled, and the contents instructive and well preserved. The principal were young shoots of the fir and pine; a quantity of young fir-cones, also in a chewed state, were mixed with the mass.... As we wereeviscerating the animal, I was as careless and forgetful as my Jakuti, who did not notice that the ground was sinking under their feet, until a fearful scream warned me of their misfortune, as I was still groping in the animal’s stomach. Shocked, I sprang up, and beheld how the river was burying in its waves our five Jakuti and our laboriously saved beast. Fortunately, the boat was near, so that our poor workpeople were all saved, but the Mammoth was swallowed up by the waves, and never more made its appearance.”

[64]This must be incorrect (seep. 203).

[65]“Und mit Pech so durchgedrungen.”

Much may be learned from this highly interesting account; it contains the key to several questions which otherwise might have remained unsolved. Let us see what conclusions can be derived therefrom.First, its position and perfect state of preservation are sufficient to prove that it was buried where it died. It sank in a marsh, probably during the summer. Then came the cold of winter; the carcase, together with the ground around it, was frozen so that decomposition was arrested, and frozen it must have remained for many centuries till the day when M. Benkendorf came across it. Or it may have been buried up in a snow-drift which in time became ice.

In the region where frozen Mammoths occur (and there are at least nine cases on record), a considerable thickness of frozen soil may be found at all seasons of the year; so that if a carcase be once embedded in mud or ice, its putrefaction may be arrested for indefinite ages. According to one authority, the ground is now permanently frozen even to the depth of four hundred feet at the town of Jakutsh, on the western bank of the river Lena. Throughout a large part of Siberia the boundary cliffs of the lakes and rivers consist of earthy materials and ice in horizontal layers. Middendorf bored to the depth of seventy feet, and after passing through much frozen soil mixed with ice, came down upon a solid mass of pure transparent ice, the depth of which he was unable to ascertain.

The year 1846, when M. Benkendorf saw his Mammoth, wasexceptional on account of its unusually warm summer, so that the ground of the tundra region thawed, and was converted into a morass. Had any Mammoths been alive then, and strayed beyond the limits of the woods into the tundra, probably some of them would have been likewise engulphed, and, when once covered up and protected from the decaying action of the air, the cold of the next winter would have frozen their carcases as this one must have been frozen up.

Truly, “there is nothing new under the sun,” and the present highly useful method of freezing meat and bringing it over from America or New Zealand to add to our insufficient home supplies, is but a resort to a process employed by Nature long before the age of steamships, and perhaps even before the appearance of man on the earth!

Secondly, with regard to the food of the Mammoth, Benkendorf’s discovery is of great service in solving the question how such a creature could have maintained its existence in so inhospitable and unpromising a country. The presence of fir-spikes in the stomach is sufficient to prove that it fed on vegetation such as is now found at the northern part of the woods as they join the low treeless tundra in which the body lay buried.

Before this discovery the food of the Mammoth was unknown, and all sorts of theories were devised in order to account for its remains being found so far north. Some thought that the Mammoth lived in temperate regions, and that the carcases were swept down by great floods into higher and colder latitudes. But it would be impossible for the bodies to be hurried along a devious course for so many miles without a good deal of injury, and probably they would fall to pieces on the way. But, as Professor Owen has so convincingly argued, there is no reason why herds of Mammoths should not have obtained a sufficient supply of food in a country like the southern part of Siberia, where trees abound in spite of the fact that during a great part of the year it is covered with snow. And this is his line ofreasoning. The molar teeth of the elephant show a highly complicated and peculiar structure, and there are no other quadrupeds that feed to such an extent on the woody fibre of the branches of trees. Many mammals, as we know, eat the leaves of trees; some gnaw the bark; but elephants alone tear down and crunch the branches. One would think there was but little nourishment to be got from such. But the hard vertical plates of their huge grinders enable them to pound up the tough vegetable tissue and render it more or less palatable. Of course, the foliage is the most tempting, but where foliage is scarce something more is required.

Now, in the teeth of the Mammoth the same principle of construction is observed, only with greater complexity, for there are more of these grinding plates and a larger proportion of dense enamel. Hence the inference seems unmistakable that the extinct species fed more largely on woody fibre than does the elephant of to-day. Forests of hardy trees and shrubs still grow upon the frozen soil of Siberia, and skirt the banks of the Lena as far north as the sixtieth parallel of latitude.

If the Mammoth flourished in temperate latitudes only, as formerly suggested, then its thick shaggy coat becomes superfluous and meaningless; but if it lived in the region where its body has been found, then the argument from its teeth, and the fir-spikes found in its stomach, is confirmed by the nature of its skin, and all the old difficulties vanish. Professor Owen considers that we may safely infer that, if living at the present day, it would find a sufficient supply of food at all seasons of the year in the sixtieth parallel, and even higher. Perhaps they migrated north during the summer; and, judging from the present limits of arboreal vegetation, they may have been able to subsist even in latitude 70° north, for at the extreme points of Lapland pines attain a height of sixty feet.[66]

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