Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1891-08-25
WELL PRESERVED MAMMoTHs.
One That Was Eaten About $4,000 Year.
After Burial.

After Burial.
II was not till the last year Of the last CEN
fury that the first mammoth was olsen
tombed from the tundra, to the complete
demolition of giants and antiquaries, and tie
profound delight of scientific inquirers In
1799 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 were quietly rejoicing in the rare and I'M
expected luxury OF a warm summer In the
course of this unexpected climatic debauch
Tungusian 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 mainmoths. 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
fly to visit the suspicious creature, and the
year after that he visited il third time, and
SO on, until the mammoth was at last
fairly thawed out, and fell on the sandbank
by the shore of the Arctic ocean. Then the
fisherman, seeing the monster was really
dead, summoned up courage boldly to cut out
the tusks, which he straigbtway sold, on
business bent, for fifty roubes TO Russian
merchant. AS 10 the body itself, he thought
no more in any way about that, for the skin
and flesh being somewhat high. not to say
unpleasant, were 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 it 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 Golovkin.
Hearing that mammoth had been I'M
earthed, or, rather, noticed, near the mouth
of the Lena, he turned aside from his main
path to pay his respects in due form to the
prehistoric monster He found il, indeed,
still recognizable, but quantum mutatlis alb
lilo, a bare and mutilated elephautine corpse,
with scarce fragment OF flesh cingiug to
the bones Of the huge skeleton. The fisher
men around had cut OFF the muscles from the
body in great slices to feed their dogs. and
the wolves and bears had feasted their ill
Oh the frozen and unsavory meat Of II for
gotten antiquity.
There is something positively appalling in
the idea of that strange beast. preserved SO
fresh for $1,000 Years ION the most modest
computationl, that when once more dlsen-
tombed it was still fit for upine food, aud
for the matter Of that was very probably
cooked and eaten i'll part by the unsophsti-
Gated Tungusians themselves in person But
though most of the flesh had disappeared the
skeleton still remained almost intact held
together iii places by the uGdecayed liga.
mcnts, the huge eyes yet stared wildly from
their capacio,is sockets, the brain was unn-
jured 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 rs ten men
was taken to ST. Petersburg, and there set up.
in the museum of the nper al 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
this 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
diseoverer; but whether he sold bacl, the
right par or another set like them that lit ed
equally well, has never been quite satisfac-
torily determined. -Cornhill Magazine.