Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1892-06-25

the mammoth 1000 or
5000 years ago, as 1t coasted through the bush
near their huts caves in France and Ger
many.
That elephant which was the companion of
primeval man in the old world and the new has
been extinct as species, but not as genus,
for hundreds of years. When it was eliminated
from the fauna of this earth We do not know,
except approximately within, say, several CEN
turtles, but that the mammoth did live in the
forests Of France and Belgium when man was
mere savage we do know; and we know it be-
cause man himself rude and untaught as he
must have been when living in the caves of
Auvergne and Mentone has left us the evil
denoe, not alone in broken mammoth soup and
marrow bones. but in forcible drawings. etched
on stone and bone of the big beast itself-its
long tusks, its stiff coarse hair and great trunk
and ears.
THE MAMMOTH OF CENTURIES AGO.
Before speaking of the details Of the inter-
esting life Of those boreal elephants whose
heavy tread must have often shaken the earth
along the banks of our Alaskan rivers II is well
to emphasize the fact that the mammoth. now
extinct, and whose bones and tusks We find in
the northland today, was almost identical in its
makeup and appearance with the Indian or
Ceylon elephant Of the present day. just about
the same size and weight, only differing in its
CoaS Vi tulch, COarst nalr anu unutr WOOL. Inc
two living species of elephants are elePhas In
deus, the Asiatic elephant and ele-
phss Africanus, the African representative.
The mammoth (elephas prinnigenius), has been
and still continues to be COMPOUNDED with the
mastodon (mastodon giganteus). which Is also
that closely resembled the elephants as we know
them, differing from them generically in de-
tails of dentition, but still resembling them
closely otherwise, only having longer and larger
tusks.
The mammoth, however is the only elephant
that ranged from the TEMPERATE zone into the
arctic. 1t never appeared in the tropics or in
South America or any part of the southern
hemisphere. The mastodon, however ranged
all the way down from the temperate zone to
the tropics on both hcmispheres and was COM
mon in South America.
THE MAMMOTH APPROACHED THE NORTH POLE.
The mammoth, the primeval proboscidean, ex-
listed over the whole northern hemisphere of
the globe from the fortieth degree Of north
latitude to the sixtieth degree and often went
as far north as the seventeen degree of latitude.
for there, at least, at the mouth Of the Lena
river, the carcass Of a mammoth was found in
1799 well preserved as to flesh and members.
To account for this extraordinary fact that eie-
plants once ranged well up toward the north
pole 1t has been gravely and persisently stated
that tropical climate once prevailed on the
o"hAr VI thC luhou anu tuo iIeIh sllRut
deviation in the axis of the earth's path around
the sun has caused the dreary steppes and the
desolate mountain ridges that we find there now
instead of rose bushes and palm trees spread
out over fertile plains and fruitful hills.
COVERED WITH HAIR AND WOOL.
The idea Of an elephant, such as we know
them to be, living amid snow and ice was sim
ply preposterous, and it was thought that there
must have been climatic cataclysm at some
not remote period of the earth history. When
however, it became well ascertaned that the
mammoth had a thick coat of hair and finer
under wool, and was organized as to gain its
living from the branches or the woody fiber
OF trees, then the idea was quite right OF such
an elephant living in great good shape as near
| the pole as was compatible with the hardy growth
of trees or shrubs. But how or why it should
have been exterminated long before civilized
man ever saw it there's satisfactory an
swer. Had our knowledge, however, of this
animal been restricted, as 1t is in the case of
| nearly all other extinct animals, to its bones
and teeth it would have been deemed hazard
GUS speculation to have conceived priori that
the extinct ancient elephant, whose remains
were and are SO abundant in the frozen soil of
| Siberia and Alaska, had been clad like most
! existing quadrupeds adapted for such q eli
mate, with a double garment Of close fur and
| coarse hair-unlikely since both existing species
Of elephants are almost naked, at best
coarse hairs Of one kind only.
WONDERFUL DISCOVERY
But in 1899 the wonderful and unlooked-for
discovery of the body of an entire mammoth
| took place in this way During the summer Of
that year Tungusian, named Schumacher
who habitually hunted and fished every season
on the Taimut peninsula near the Lena river
mouth (Siberia), concluded to end the result of
a poor summers work by hunt for fossil ivory
He erected a small cabin on the banks of Il lake
called Ooncool, not far from the Arctic sea, and
from which locality other Tungoose natives had
at different times brought the larges. and finest
of ivory. popularity of this lake was its
frozen cliffs or, in other words, in Siberia and
| in Alaska at Kotzebre sound, there are solid
walls OF ice, capped with earth and moss, which
face the sea and the river waters. Some of
these cliffs are fifty and sixty feet high extend
for miles along the coast and run back inland
for unknown distances.
This man Soomaychcr, after cruising for sew
eral DAYS under those peculiar frozen bluffs of
Lake Ooncool, cav among the blocks of ice
shapeless mass, but did not possess the time or
physical power to get at it. The thought. how
ever, haunted him, and in 1900, or the follow
ing summer, he returned to the spo. and then
discovered that the object was some huge ami
NAL, of which he could only see a small part
1t was solidly imbedded in the glacial ice. ap-
parently frozen in about ten or twelve feet above
the beach level with six or seven feet of frozen
earth Gaping it. The Tungoose. like all of
his people, was excessively superstitious, and
queerly enough he rightly guessed that what
| he dimly saw was that giant beast, the
| teeth of which he was in search of, but
he also believed as he looked at it that il was
alive and moving in its regular order of life!
because these natives long have had the belief
| that the mammoth lives underground and never
comes out; hence all that they ever find of it
| its bones and teeth-are always found after
being thawed out from the earth and ice.
Therefore, Soomaycher, sorely alarmed and
| dreading the result of disturbing the big beast
which be had discovered, silently retired from
the spot. Sleeping or waking. however, he
could not Danish the thought Of his discovery
| from his mind. His fears kept him away from
the spot for nearly two years until his curiosity
led him back to the place in 1908. By this time
part Of the Zoe between the earth and the car
cass OF the mammoth having melted more rap
idly than the rest the plane Of its support be-
came inclined and the enormous mass fell by
its own weight down to the sandy beach below
Soomaycher, having satisfied himself Of the
fact that it was dead, cut the enormous tusks
out and loaded his boat heavily with the flesh
for the use OF his dogs He took the ivory over to
the Lena and sold the handsome find for 80
roubies to q trader and then told the natives Of
the discovery Of the mammoth carcass In q
region like this the news travels slowly
and 1t was not until 1906, or nearly
seven years after Soolnazcher had
| drst seen the object that Mr. Ada,ns Brifiah