New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1878-08-17
MAMMOTH and MAST0DOM.

We print in another column tins morning
an interesting letter from Professor Alexander
Winchell, in which he describes the great
European mammoth which Professor Ward
has purchased and placed in his museum at
Rochester. In every essential particular this
reconstructed animal is undoubtedly fair
specimen of the huge monsters which rOamed
through the ,wilds of Northern Europe and
Asia, and ALTO in Alaska and along the west
ern slope Of the Rocky Mountains, as far
south as the Columbia River, while the human
race was still in its infancy. Even during the
present century the remains of these an
finals have been found in Siberia, so
perfectly preserved by the ice that their
flesh was greedily dcyoured by the
dogs of the discoverer. DR.. Wards specl-
men has been constructed from actual meas
urement of the skeleton of Siberian man.
moth now in the Imperial Museum of st. Pc
tersburg, and the illustration we give of it
will show its vast size and its great resem-
bIance TO its lineal descendant, the mod
ern elephant. In North America, east of
the Rocky Mountains. the eleDhantine
creature which flOurished cOntempOraneOusly
with the mammoth is known as the mastOdon.
More than a hundred skeletons OF this animal
have already been discovered, although the
interior OF the continent is comparatively I'M
known ground to the antiquarian. There
we're many points of likeness between them
but the mastodon was the smaller of the
two. had shorter and sleDderer tusks, aud was
probably smooth skinned, while the mammoth
was apparently well covered with shaggy
hair.
Professor Winchell reviews very fully the
difference between the two kindred families,
and sums up what is known of the life and
habits of these ancient creatures But to GER
tain class OF readers the most interesting part of
his letter will be that in which he discusses
the probable cause of their extinction. He
claims that in the time of the mammoth the
climate of Northern Siberia was temperate,
yielding an abundant vegetation, and es-
pecially sustaining immense forests on which
the mammoth mainly subsisted. In this region
their numbers were so great that the tusks
of mammoths now occur IN such quantities as
to furnish an important part of the ivory of
commerce. How came these vast herds
to perish, and leave not single stray
gler behindf Professor Winchell attributes
their destruction to a sudden invasion of Arctic
weather. some secular cndnSe, nc believes
produced an unprecedented precipitation of
snow. under which, huddled together in the
sheltering valleys and deep defiles Of the
rivers, the mammoths persisted. 1t was one of
those sudden changes which Mr.. Clarence
King not long ago described in his remark
able essay on CatastrOphism, and of which, as
he showed, geology furnishes many examples.
1t was probably in some similar catastrophe
that the mastodOn also became extinct.
How such catastrOphes were produced, or
whether they are still liable to occur, is purely
A matter of speculation. A sudden change in
the earth's orbit, or in the direction of the
earth's axis, would readily account for them
but it is extremely improbable that such
changes could ever have taken place. In the
variability of the sun we may possibly find
moro plausible solution of the difficulty, but
even there the variations are now so slight as
TO be utterly inadequate to produce such sur
prising results Without entering upon this
wide field of speculation, Professor Winchell
cites various proofs of these great and sudden
climatic changes, and his letter-long as it is
we'll deserves careful reading.