Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-09-05
MAMMOTH is TO BE EXHIBITED AT

| animal, which is q restoration" of an actual
original that lived centuries or so ago, has been
| put up at q natural science workshop in Roch-
| ester N. Y. Its tremendous size may bost be
suggested by comparing it with the greatest
| elephant known-Jumbo. Jumbo was eleven
feet high. This colossal beast stands sixteen
feet in height. Its length is twenty-six feet,
the body is thirty feet in circumference and
the distance between tho tips of the tusks is
| fourteen feet The tusks are fourteen feet long
and one foot in diameter at the base. The sole
Of each foot is three fee. across. Between the
short, post-like forelegs man can stand up
right with his hat on. The skin is clothed all
over with long, dark, shaggy hair.
ACTUAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE oR1o,yAL
This vast creature, which 10 destined 20 ex-
| cite the awe-struck admiration Of millions at
| the Columbian exposition, has not been put
together without accurate knowledge OF the ex-
| tnct original TO go upon. Bones of the latter.
| among those of hundred OF its species, are
] stored away in the Royal Natural History Mu-
| scum at Stuttgart, wurtemburg. From care
| full measurements of these the exact dimeu-
| sions OF the animal were first obtained and on
| this basis of certainty framework was put up
| OF timber and iron fer the body and head
Over this the heshy contour was skiiifuIy
shaped and the whole was covered by skin
| made of paper mash. The trunk was nodded
! IN paper mash also, and the great tusks we're
made out of wood. erameled to represent ivory.
Finally coat OF shaggy hair was added, dyed
the proper color, and thus was produced, rs
nearly as science and art could accomplish it,
the verisimilitude of the living mammoth
which once Numbered through the forests and
iunsles OF this continent, as we'll as Of the old
world. The hair was rendered jncombustible
by sleeping it in solution OF tungstate of soda.
How it was known what the beasts hair Was
like will presently appear
WHERE THE MAMMoTHs BONES ARE FOUND.
Although history has preserved no mention
of the animal in living state, its bones are
scattered over the whole of Europe and north
ern Asia as far as Boring strait. Even on the
American side of the strait they occur in
abundance. Over all the United States diff
ferent species Of the same enormous animal
has left its remains, and still another species is
known to have ranged in South America. Like
modern elephants, the mammoths probably
delighted In water and mire, and enjoyed wal
lowing in mud. This instinct tempted them
into treacherous bogs. where they seem some
times to have sunk. for their bones are fire.
queItly preserved in beds of peat, tho entire
skeleton being occasionally found in an erect
position.
Thus their osseous parts were kept intact for
ages. and In northern Siberis their tusks. dug
up, are so plentiful as t" supply large part OF
the worlds demand for ivory. the quantity
of such remains dispersed over thai entire re-
elon is amply amazing. The soil Of certain
islands in the Siberian sea is literally crowded
full of them. This is particularly true of the
Lalchovian Isles, north OF +he mouth vi the
River Seva. The native SiberIans. unable other
wise to account for the prese nce OF these great
bones under ground and frozen iii the eternal
ice. believe them to be those OF a gigantic spc-
eies OF mole, which burrows in the earth, hv-
ing on roots and only appearing during tue
darkest nights, when they cannot be seen. 1t
Is astonishing enough to consider what vast
herds OF these beasts must have 'oamed the
plains in past times to have left behind them
such multitudinous remnants.
THE FIRST MAMMOTH ZONES
discovered in Europe wer. supposed by con-
temporary naturalists to be those OF giant men,
and as late az 1877 eminent professor at
Lucerne constructed from peivis and a thigh
bone man nineteen feet high. Nor was the
mistake SO altogether surprising. inasmucE as
mammoth bones are remarkably similar to
those OF a human being. The vertebrG
of the backbone seem only magnited
copies of human yeriebre; the shoulder
blade looks if it belonged to a gigan-
tic man. and the pelvis, femur, tarsus,
matatarsus, corpus and mctacarpus all bear
similar resemblance. 1t Is certain that the
mammoth was contemporary with man, like
toothed tiger, because its bones split open with
stone hammers to get at the marrow are found
in the paieoiithic cave dwellings in Europe.
An ASTONISHING DISCOVERY.
In 1899 discovery made which pro-
foundry agitated the scientific world. During
that year a man named Schumacher. chief of
| a wandering tribe Of Tunguzes, built a cabin
for his wife on the borders of Lake Oncoul,
and went to search on the seashore for maui
| moth tasks. One day he saw in an icy cliff q
| shapeless mass which piqued his curiosity
About year afterward, passing this point, he
observed that the object in the ice cliff was
more detached from the ice than it had been
| before. He noticed two long projections, but
| he could not yet tell what they were. Toward
| the close Of the next summer the whole side of
| the animal projected beyond the wall OF ice.
! shore OF Oncoul. and told his discovery to his
| wife and friends. They were seized with con-
| sternation.
The old men told over again the stories they
had heard from their fathers, stories of q like
monster seen once in an ice cliff Of the same
peninsula. and they told what their fathers had
| said of the calamity which befell the dis
| coverer aud his household. They persisted
miserably, every one Schumacher was terri
| fed and fell sick. On his recovery avarice be-
| gan to get the better Of superstition. The ice
cliff was explored again, but the mammoth was
| found still Embedded. At last, toward the
close OF the fifth year after the first discovery,
! the ice had melted SO much that the great
beast had slid down along an escarpment more
| than 200 feet high and lodged on bank of
| sand on the seashore. Here Schumac h off
| found his mammoth and cut of the tusks,
which he sold for 20 rublss.
WHAT MAN OF SCIENCE FOUND.
| Two years afterward man of science went to
the locality and found the mammoth, but not
as Schumacher had left it. There had been
hard times ON the shores Of that icy sea and
| the people had cut up the flesh of the man.
moth and fed il to their dogs. White bears,
, wolves, foxes and gluttons had picked the
bones The head was still covered with skin.
The brain remained in the skull but was some
| what dry. The eyes remained in the sockets
and through all the years OF entombment-per-
chance hundred thoussnd-they had lost but
little except their iuster. One Of the ears was
| entire and was furnished with tufts OF hair
The skiu-dark gray in eolor-was furnished
! with bristle-hke hairs from four to eighteen
inches in length, another covering of thick-set
hairs four inches long, and, filing the interval
| between the hairs, coat OF wool. On the neck
was long and shaggy name.
TUE ORIGINAL n 81. PETERSBURG.
All that remained was at once carefully col.
lected. including moro than thirty pounds Of
fur. The tusks, which luckily had not been
sawed up, were repurehased from the ivory
merchant who had bought them, and the whole
| was transported to st. Petersburg, where the