Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-12-07

Elephants, Tasks.
As ivory enters so largely into the commerce
of the day, either in the crude state in which it
is wrested from the huge elephants of Africa
and of India, or in articles of luxury and use,
the following facts relating to the sources of its
supply, the demand for it, and the purposes TO
which it is most applied, will be found interest
ing to the reader.
Ivory was at a very early period an article of
traffic and adornment, and to prove this, we
have only to turn to Sacred Writ, and TO the
earliest prOlane poets of antiquity. SOlomon's
ship came trennaly laden with gold and sill
yer, ivory and apes and peacocks;' and more
over the king made a great throne Of ivory and
overlaid it with the best gold" David lin
Psalm XIV sang of ivory palaces and the
Prophet Ezekiel, speaking Of the luxury of Tyre,
states that even the galleries had benches of
ivory. Homer tells us Of the magnfcencc of
the early and most barbarous Greek princes, in
whose mansions
'The spoils of shepherds the roofs inlay"
From Africa, perhaps, more than from India,
the long tusks were imported that gave to the
most splendid monarch Of Israel, and to the
warrior chiefs of Helas, their covered white
adornments. My il not he clue TO the voy-
ages of the Tarshishian ships Of Solomon that
at the present day commerce has taken its old
channel down the Nile, aud Cairo is once more
a mart where gold and ivory are to be procured.
Until within a few years, the Egyptian pashas
made trading up and down the Nile monopoly;
now, Egyptian, French, German and English
merchants explore the remote recesses of that
river, not for the purpose of science, but for
those of commerce. In one of the reports of
sales of ivory in London, the headquarters of
this traffic, we find that $4,000 pounds of ivory
sold was Egyptian; that is, found its way to
civilization through Egypt.
Herodotus distinctly tells us that Africa
yielded her tribute of elephants teeth to the
kings of Persia The Greeks had masterpieces
of art composed of gold and ivory, while the
grave senators of Rome sat in ivory chairs, That
Africa was the source whence the ancientS of
southern Europe drew their supply, we learn
from Pliny, the younger, who says that the
vast consumption ofivory for articles Of luxury,
compelled the Romans to seek for it, in another
hemisphere, "as Africa had ceased to furnish
elephants tusks, except of the smallest kind.
After the overthrow of the Roman empire the
commerce between EarOpe and Africa was sus-
pended for many centuries. At length the en-
terprise of Portugal, the eldest daughter the
Lusitania-of Rome opened anew Africa and
India. In the meantime the lordly elephant had
multiplied in his native forest, and if the long
tusks were secured by the natives, they served
merely the plebian purposes of door posts, of
the defenceS of wooden idols. Battell, q quaint
old Engshman, who served in the early Portu-
gueSe armies, says that the Africans chad their
idols of wood fashioned like negro, and at
the foot thereof was great heap Of elephants
teeth, containing three or four tons of them"
IL is q well Known ltlCI Iuat inc lUudDldllJS Ol
Angola aud Congo, when the. Portuguese first oC-
cupied those coasts, were found to have pre-
served an immense amount of elephants teeth,
the accumulation Of centuries. For long time
this ivory was exported to various parts OF Eu-
rope, and this traffic formed one Of the most
lucrative branches of the early modern trade
with Africa About the middle Of the 18th CEN
fury, this store became exhausted, and the sons
of Ethiopia were inStigated to initiate their an
cestors in renewing the battle with the long
tusked elephants.
To-day the amount of ivory consumed in the
workshops of Europe, America and India is
immense, and yet, great as it is, the continent
| of Africa furnishes Seven-eighths of all that is
| worked up into ornaments, toys and crucidXes
| in France heather gods, boxes and fans in In
| dia and China; billiard balls, boxes, miniature
| plates, chessmen, mathematical rules, keys for
| piano fOrteS, organs and meOdeons fans,
| combs, folders dominoeS, and thousand and
| one things, in England, Germany and the
United States.
Portugal was the England of the sixteenth
century in more respects than one. For two
centuries Portugal held, in the east and on the
African coast, the power now in the hands of
| England. Lisbon at that time was at the head
| of the ivory market; now London is the mart
| where ivory dealers congregate. 1t sometimes
| occurs that the Salem and other American
merchants engaged in the African trade ship
their tuSkS Tor teeth in commercial parancet) tO
| London, after they have brought them from the
| Zanzibar and Mozambique coast to the United
| States In the worlds great metropolis there
| occurs at regular intervals one of those sales
| which furnish the manufacturers with the stock
| of elephants teeth.
While we associate ivory and India together,
| hut little Of the former comes from the latter
| 1t is estimated that to supply ivory the British
market, for the last few years, has required
| about 100000 pounds annually; of this quan
| tity Ceylon-the great elephant mart of India
sho A1lv rgi,-
ivory which is put down in printed reports of
\ sales as Bombay" in nine cases out of len is
| shipped by Alahomedan merchants from the east
| coast of Africa TO the large northwestern empo-
rum of Bombay. We do not mean, however
| to assert that no elephants tuskS come from Asia
| Ceylon and Sumatra. There is also a large
| ivory trade between Zanzibar and China, VIA
Bombay. A great deal of ivory, We may state
| by the way, now reaches the United States di-
! rectly from Africa.
The immense demand for elephants teeth has
of late years increased the supply from ali parts
| of Africa. At the end of the last century, the
| annual average importation into England was
only 195,50O pounds in 1921 it reached 1854 1874
pounds, or 60SO tasks, which would require the
| death of at least 5040 elephants. 1t is probable
that the slaughter is much greater, for the teeth
! of the female elephant are very small, and
| Burchell tells us, in his African travels, that he
met with some elephant hunters who had
| shot twelve huge fellows which, however, al
together produced no more than two hundred
pounds Of ivory. To produce 900 600 pounds
of ivory, the annual English import, we should
require estimating each tusk at sixty pounds
the life of 1888 male elephants. A tusk weigh
ing seventy pounds and upwards is considered
| by dealers as first class.
The most costly tnsks or portions OF the
tuskS, are those which are used for billiard balls
What are termed "cut points, or lust the right
size for billiard balls, from 81 to SIS inches
in diameter, brought the highest price 500 per
cut of any ivory offered in the London market
at the late sales. Billiard ball making has Of
late become a very important item of manufac-
ture in this country
The teeth from the west coast, with the ey-
ception Of "Gaboon," are less elastic and less
capable Of bleaching than those that come from
other portions Of Africa. The west coast tusks
are much used for kniic-handes Since the
| French have possessed Algeria, France receives
a considerable portion Of ivory from Central
Africa by the large caravans that travel from
| Timbuctoo northward.
Ivory is also furnished by the warus or sea-
horse, and commands a price equal to the best
| qualities of elephant ivory. 1t is, however,
| too hard and non-castic for many purposes, and
has the disadvantage Of being too small to cut
| up profitably.
| The Russiau's Dcmi-G.Od