The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-09-13
STORY OF A MAMMOTH.
a GIANT BEASr TO BIZ SHOWN AT
THE CHICAGO FAIR.

MODEL ola Real Mammoth-What the
Animal mas Like and How it Roamed
in Herds Through Slberia-A Carcass
Buried in Ice.
From the Washington Star.
mammoth is to be exhibited at the
worlds fair in Chicago, The mighty
animal, which is a restoration of an
actual original that lived centuries
ago, has been put up at a natural science
workshop in Rochester, n. Y. Its tremend-
GUS size may best be suggested by compsr-
ing it with the greatest elephant known
Jumbo. Jumbo was eleven feet high. This
colossal beast stands sixteen feet in hight.
Its length is twenty-six feet, the body is
thirty feet in circumference and the dis
lance between the tips Of the tusks is four
teen feet. The tusks are fourteen feet long
and one foot in diameter at the base. The
sole of each foot is three feet across. Be-
tween the short, post-hke forelegs a man
can stand upright with his hat on. The
skin is clothed all over with long, dark,
shaggy hair.
ACTUAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE ORIGINAL.
The vast creature, which is destined to
excite the awe-struck admiration of mil
lions at the Columbian exposition, has not
edge of the extinct original to go upon.
Bones of the latter, among those Of hum
dred of It's species, are stored away in the
Royal Natural History Museum at Suits
CART, Wurtemburg From careful measure
mentS of these the exact di nensions Of the
animal were first obtained, and on this basis
OF certainty the framework vas put up of
timber and iron for the body aud head. Over
this the fieshy contour was skillfully shaped
eaV,A Elsa, hxy eli a,
of paper machie. The trunk was nodded in
paper machie also, and the great tusks were
made out of wood enameled to represent
ivory.
Finally a coat of shaggy hair was
added, dyed the prdper color and
thus was produced as nearly as science
and art could accomplish it, the verlsimili-
tude of the living mammoth which once
thundered through the forests and jungles OF
this continent, as well as of the old world.
The hair was rendered incomDustible by
stepping il a solution of tungstate of soda.
How it was known what the beasts hair
was like will presently appear
WHERE THE BONES ARE FOUND.
Although history has preserved no men
tion of the animal in a living state, its
bones are scattered over the whole of Eu.,
rope and Northern Asia as far as Boring
strait. Even on the American side Of the
strait they appear in abundance. All over
the United States different 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 mammoth probably delighted
in water and mire, and enjoyed wallow-
ing in mud. This instinct tempted them
into treacherous boys, where they seem
sometimes to have sunk, for their bones are
frequently preserved in beds of peat, the
entire skeleton being occasionally found in
an erect position.
Thus their osseous parts were kept intact
for eyes, and in Northern Siberia their tusks
dug up, are SO plentiful as to supply a large
part of the worlds demand for ivory. The
quantity of such remains dispersed over the
entire region is simply amazing. The soil
of certain islands in the Siberian sea is
literally crowded full of them. This is par
ticularly true of the Laichovian lses, north
OF the mouth Of the River Seva. The ma
tive Slberians, unable otherwise to account
for the presence of these great bones under
ground and frozen in the eternal ice, be-
lieve them TO be those of a gigantic species
of mole, which burrows in the earth, living
on roots and only appearing during the
darkest nights. when they cannot be seen.
1t is astonishing enough to consider what
vast herds of these beasts must have roamed
the plains in past times to have left behind
them such multitudinous remains.
THE FIRST MAMMOTH BONES
discovered in Europe were supposed by con-
temporary naturalisfs to he those of giant
men, and as late as 1871 an eminent pro-
fessor at Lucerne constructed from pelvis
and q thigh bone man nineteen feet high,
Nor was the mistake SO altogether surpris-
ing, inasmuch as mammoth bones are
remarkably similar to those of a human
ho1 no ~ ha aIyho
only magnified copies of human vertebre;
the shoulder blade looks as il it belonged to
gigantic man, and the pelvis, femur, tar
sus, matatarsus, carpus and metaca rpus
all bear similar resenblances. 1t is certain
that the mammoth was contemporary with
man like the cave bear, .woolly rhinoceros
and saber-toothed tiger, because It's bones
split open with stone hammers to get at the
marrow are found in the paleolithic cave
dwellings in Europe.
AN ASTONISHING DISCOVERY.
! In 1899 discovery was made which pro-
| foundly agItated the scientific world. Dur
ing that year a man named Schumacher,
chief of a wandering tribe of Tuuguzes,
built cabin for his wife on the borders of
Lake Onc0ul, and went to search on the
seashore for mammoth tusks. One day he
| saw in an icy cliff a shapeless mass that
| piqued his curiosity. About year after
| ward 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 the
ice. The chief now returned to his cabiu
on the shore Of Oncoul. and told his dis
covery to his wife and friends. They were
seiz5d with CONSERVATION.
The old men told over again the stories
they had heard from their fathers, stories Of
a like monster once seen in an ice cliff, of
the same peninsula. and they told what
their fathers bad said Of the calamity which
befell the discoverer and his household.
They persisted miserably, every one. Schu-
machotf was terrified and fell sick. On his
recovery avarice began to get the better Of
superstition. The ice cliff was explored
again but the mammoth was found still
imbedded 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 and lodged on a bank of sand on
the seashore. Here Schumacher found his
mammoth and cut off the tusks, which he
sold for 50 rubles.
WHAT a MAN OF SCIENCE FOUND
Two years afterward man of science
won't TO the locality and found the NAM
moth, but not as Schumacher had left Il.
There had been hard times on the shores of
the icy sea and the people had cut up the
flesh Of the mammoth and fed 1t to their
dogs. White bears, wolves, foxes and glut-
| tons had picked the bones. The head was
still covered with skin. The brain remained
in the skull, but was somewhat dry. The