The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1879-05-02

feet by seventy-fve, the skeletons of four
mastodons were discovered, of which
the Cambridge skeleton is the largest.
One of these four skeletons was that
of quarter-grown calf, which may have
followed its mother into the bog.
The mastodon at one time probably
inhabited the whole American con-
tinent, but at how remote period Of
time is not known. The condition of
the skeleton found at Newburgh indi-
Gates that the bones could not have been
lying there for more than 400 or 500
years, at most From 500 to 1000
years ago, herds of mastodons were, no
doubt, common on the Delaware and
throughout the West.
The name mastodon il from two
Greek words, ndstos and odons, and
signifies nipple-tooth, or tooth having
mammillated eminences on its grinding
surfaces.
In Europe and Asia, the animal which
there corresponds with the mastodon In
America is more commonly termed the
mammoth, word of Tartaric origin,
signifying :" of the EARTH"
The European and Asiatic mammoth,
though belonging to the same family of
animals, differs somewhat anatomically,
and particularly in its teeth, from the
American species. It's bones are found
throughout Europe and in the British
isles. Siberia, even, was one of its
favorite habitats. Unlike the African
and East Indian elephants, the more
northern mammoth was clad in a thick
coat of woolly hair.
When, during the Middle Ages, the
bones and tusks of mammoth were
found in Europe, they were commonly
believed to be those of elephants used
in the armies of Hannibal, or in the
Roman armies. This was before the
science of comparative anatomy had
made much progress. Often, when the
huge bones were found without the
tusks, they were rumored to be those of
giants, and strange, enormous skeletons
were constructed from them.
Some mammoth bones found near the
city of Palermo were put together, and
estimated to be those of man, whose
height must have been nearly 400 feet!
1t was gravely declared that he must
have been one of the terrible Cyclops
of ancient tradition, "most probably the
one-eyed Polyphemus whom Ulysses
met in his wanderings."
During the last twenty-five years,
much interest has attached to the dis
covery of mammoth remains in Siberia
Herds of these huge unwieldy creatures
seem, not very many centuries ago, to
have found Northern Asia congenial
home; and in the deltas and mud flats
at the mouths of the great rivers, Obi,
Yenisei, Lena, and Indigirka, and upon
the shores of the outlying islands, there
are what seem to be almost exhaustless
deposits of their bones and tusks.
Vessels are now constantly employed
in transporting fossil ivory from these
northern deposits, and large and luora-
tive trade has grown up in it. Many
fine set of chessmen and billiard balls
are from the tusks or teeth of these old.
time monsters.
The Russian Government, which has
control of all this vast region, selects
and preserves for itself the choicest and
most remarkable specimens found. In
the Imperial Museum, at st. Petersburg,
there is the finest collection of mann
moth remains in the world.
In Siberia, it sometimes happened
that mammoths crossing the frozen
boys and swamps would break through
and be ingulfed alive in the mud; and
so cold was the climate that, when once
frozen in, they remained in an almost
perfect state of preservation.
Freshets, or the changing courses of
the rivers, have occasionally washed out
these monster mummies" Packs of
wolves and groups of bears have, in sew
eral instances, been surprised feasting
on the flesh of disinterred mammoths;
and in the year 1916 the entire carcass
of mammoth was discovered by an en-
gineer named Beckendorff, who was ex-
ploring the course of the Indigirka, in
Northeastern Siberia.
The summer of that year was very
hot one. and the frozen marshes or Dogs
that cover most of the surface of the
country were thawed to considerable
depth, so that, as Beckendorff sailed
slowly up the Indigirka in small iron
vessel, he saw the river swollen and
Overlooking the surrounding districts,
and seeming to him like wide sea of
dirty brown water, in which masses of
logwood, washed out of the thawing
marshes, were drifting down to the
ocean.
He noticed what he took for mass
of this driftwood rising and falling on
the water at some distance from his lit
tie steamer; but hunter in the explor-
ing party declared it was carcass of
some animal. It sank as he called at
tention to it, but rose again close to the
boat.
"a black, horrible, giant-hke mass"
says Beckendorff, "was thrust out of the
water; and we beheld colossal ele-
plants 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 establishment, I beheld
the monster, hardly twelve feet from
me. with his half-open eyes yet showing
the whites"
The body was secured with rope.
To take permanent possession of it was
impossible; but Beckendorff, note book
in hand, made a rapid examination
&C - opd fbio 10 ono of Tho baot