Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1857-01-22
EVENING STAR.
SOCIETY OF ARTS-DR LIVINGSTON
AND THE ELEPHANTS.
From the London Times

The usual weekly meeting of the Society O.
Arts took place last night, over which Mr
Griffith Firth presided.
! Professor Owen, Z. K. 5 read a paper en-
titled * The Ivory and Teeth Of Commerce, ,
which he introduced by the following prefs
tory remarks: The sentiment that oppressel
me Is, that | have a strong conviction hav,
no business to be here l cannot promise tha
any result will arise from my investigation il
the formation of ivory, or hold out the Ieas
hope of showing how to improve the quality
Of ivory-increase its quantity, Or diminish
! its price l should have shrunk, therefore
! from occupying your valuable time on thi;
occasion if 1 had not submitted my own judg
ment to that of your excellent secretary, who
| assured me that you would listen with satis
faction to these results Of science, barren
| though they may be in practical application
| (Applause
The learned professor then read the paper
| which contained an elaborate and interesting z
description of the teeth Of the elephant from
which true ivory is obtained In the present
creation elephants are restricted to the Afri
can and Asiatic continents, but in former
times, as it would seem before man existed
the large qusdrupeds furnishing true ivory
were much more widely spread over the globe
After describing the tusks of the elephant, he
announced that DR. Livingston had brought
to him the spiral tusk Of an elephant, which
"oS tAIcUclJ IdIS be also eXQlDlteQ tIe
tooth Of the hippcpotamus, which is the hard
est Of all that is known, and from which the
sparks were extracted by striking it with steel
lie also described the tusk Of the walrus, and
pointed ont its peculiarities
DR. Livingston having been called upon by
the chairman, proceeded to say that he had
come there for inform alton himself, and was
afraid he could add little or nothing TO what
bad been said about the tusks of elephants
Rnt he had tha animal oliva vi he
thought he might mention what Prof Owen
had not had an opportunity Of observing that
the elephant affords one Of the best tests Of
courage that exists in the world. The Bfr-
cans believed so, and if 4 man killed an eie
phant he was able almost to do anything in
the way Of hunting If Z man went to hunt
an elephant with dogs, the elephant was to-
tally incapable of attending to the man bis
attention was taken up with the dogs. He
was to he seen standing quite perplexed with
the dogs; sometimes he went on his knees,
trying to kill them and sometimes he put
his head against large tree, pushed il down
and tried to catch them
Any person who went TO hunt with dogs did
not show much courage. Those who hunted
them IN Ceylon went up to them and killed
them, but in Africa they did not seem to have
so much courage as the officers in India. Gen
orally, in Africa, the hunter stood st the side
Of the elephant, and if he got within thirty
yards Of him, he could kill him with, on an
average, about thirty balls; but If the hunter
stood further of, it required about fifty balls
to kill the elephant We found, en- a COM
parison of the number OF elephants killed an
nually by English oficerF on furlough from
lndia-by the boers-by she uatives-snd by
the bastard beers, that civilization did not
necessarily cause efeminacy, because the av
erage number killed by the Engiishman was
about twenty; by the beers about two, and by
the others nearly enc half of that. The Eng
lishmsn killed more than the others because
he went closer to the animal, and the others
stood far of because they were afraid to 20 so
near TO it On going North he found the num-
Der Of animals increase, but they were not Of
such large growth 3s in the South. Towards
the southern part they were twelve feet high,
and he found that much further North they
were three feet lower, but the tusks were
much larger in those small elephants In the
country that was undisturbed by man, and
where there was abundance of rain AID quiet
the tusks grew more regularly than in the
country where the animals were more dis
turbed, as they are in the South, where the
people had firearms That was a reason why
| the tusks of the elephants in the North, with
abundance of food, grew larger than those in
the South, where they had To travel about
during the day for pasture. The elephants
were in such numbers that he could not cal
culate at all VI hen they would become extinct
SoIue imagined that the elephant would live
two hundred years he believed that was the
data forRed IL India; but In Africa he had
seen ~ great number Of young elephants
small slyes, like that recently bTough to this
country--snd % very often saw others, half
grown, following the same dam 1t would
appear, fr,,m that zGct, that the data formed
in India was too high, but he supposed that
al opportunity would be ssGreatter affoi led Of
settling the question by ueaas of the calf now
in London. ICheers and laughter.
After some interesting discussion, the com
pany separated.