Evening journal., 1888-08-06
WELL PRESERVED mAMMoTHs.
One That Was Eaten About $4,000 Years
After Burial.


After Burial.
It was not till the last year Of the last cen
tury that the first mammoth was disen-
tombed from the tundra, to the complete
demolition of giants and antiquaries, and the
profound. delight of scientific inquirers In
1879, at the very moment when a rash young
man OF the name of Bonaparte was upsetting
the Directory and making himself inconti-
nently into a first consul, the people OF Sibe-
ria We're quietly rejoicing in the rare and un-
expected luxury of a warm summer. In the
course of this unexpected climatic debauch a
Iungusian fisherman IN the Lena district
went out one day hunting for mammoth
tusks and was surprised to find instead
whole mammoth sticking out visibly from a
bank of half thawed mud. Siberians stand
rather in awe of mammoths: they are re-
garded as in some sort antediluvian. and
therefore uncanny monsters, and the fisher
man accordingly said nothing Of his find to
any man anywhere, but locked up the secret
profoundly in his own bosom.
Next year, however, he went again stealth
lily TO visit the suspicious creature, and the
year after that he visited it a third time, and
80 on until the mammoth was at last
fairly thawed out, and fell on the sandbank
by the shore Of the Arctic ocean Then the
dead, summoned up courage boldly to cut out
the tusl1s, which he straightway sold. on
business bent, for fifty rouhles to a Russian
merchant. As to the body itself, he thought
no more in any way about that, for the skin
and flesh being somewhat high, not to say
unpleasant We're not in a condition to form
remarkable commodities However, he no
ticed that his monster was covered with long
hair and thick wool, and that in general
shape At roughly resembled his own unsophis-
ticated idea Of an elephant Two years later
a wandering man of science passed that way
On his road to China with Count Golovkiu
Hearing that a mammoth had been un-
earthed, or, rather, noticed, near the mouth
Of tho Lena, he turned aside from his main
path to pay his respects in due form to the
prehistoric monster. He found it, indeed,
still recognizable, but quantum mutatus alb
lilo, bare and mutilated elephantine corpse,
with scarce fragment of flesh clinging to
the bones of the huge skeleton. The fisher
men around had cut or the muscles from the
body in great slices TO feed their dogs and
the wolves and bears had Toasted their ill
III the frozen and unsayory meat of a for
gotten antiquity.
There is something positively appalling in
he idea Of that strange beast, preserved so
fresh for SO,OUO years Ton the most modest
somputation), that when once more olsen
vombed it was still fit for lupine food and
Tor the matter Of that was very probably
cooked and eaten in part by the unsophisti-
Gated Tungusians themselves in person. But
though NEST Of the flesh had disappeared the
skeleton still remarked almost intact, held
together IN places by the undecayed liga-
ments; the huge eyes yet,stared wildly from
their capaeious sockets, the brain was unin-
| jurod within the heavy skull, one ear hung
unhurt from the side Of the head, retaining
its long tuft OF bristly hair, and as much of
the skin had escaped destruction us ten men
could carry away together. The skeleton
was taken to st. Petersburg, and there set up
ia the museum of the imperial academy. 1t
has frequently sat or stood for its portrait
since to various artists, and its counterfeit
presentment in black and white forms. in
fact, the common mammoth Of the ordinary
wood cuts, almost all of which are taken from
Tho earliest, the best and most perfect speci-
men The only doubtful point about the
beast is the tusks. They were purchased, as
was supposed, from the Russian merchant
who had bought them from their original
discoverer; but whether he sold back the
right pair or another set like them that fitted
equally well, has never been quite satisfac-
tCrily determined -Cornhill Magazine.