Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1896-02-13

Adipose That Aeeumnasssd ON q ,rsu,u.oeh
Tens Of Thousands Of Years ago.

e@tAcns UuE1S utS recent visit To
Alaska, secured n natural history
specimen that was a prize indeed.
1t was bit of mammoth fat from
the actual adipose tissue of an ami.
NAL that had been dead for tens of
thousands of years.
Bodies of mammoths in a fresh
state have been dug up from time
to time in arctic Siberia, preserved
IN natural cold storage since q period
probably antedating the first appear
ance of man ON the earth. That il
an old story, but this is the first
known instance in which the soft
parts of beast of this species have
been found on the American CONT
nent. 1t is easy to imagine the scien-
tific interest attaching to the discoy-
cry.
Ages ago this mammoth died un-
der such circumstances that its ccr-
pus was buried in mud. At about
that time there was q great and per-
manent change in the temperature
of circumpolar regions. The climate
had been subtropical. 1t suddenly
became frigid. The mammoths were
literally frozen out" the last of
the species perishing of cold. This
particular individual, frozen in a
bank of clay, had every prospect of
" keeping" for an indefinite period.
Hundreds cf-ucnturies later-u
stream flowing through an Alaskan
valley tackled the clay bank refer
red to and began to cut it away. At
length some big bones stuck out,
and a native of exceptional courage
dug out one or two of them. This
required more of that quality known
in civilized countries as NERVE"
than might be imagined. for strange
monsters, however long they may
have been dead, are regarded with
supersitious awe by savages.
However, the natives finally sum-
moned courage enough to drag the
remains of the mammoth out of the
clay bank piecemeal. The body Of
the animal had been preserved so
we'll that a fairly perfect cast of it
was found in the matrix. A quaint
ty of fat. which overlap the intes-
tines, was obtained and was used
for greasing boats. DIR. Dali secured
a piece of it and fetched it back to
Washington.
In the Office of Osteologist Fred
erick A. Lucas, at the National mu-
scum, is a mammoth's molar tooth,
to which an odd story is attached.
It was got from a spring at Paso
Verde, in the country of the Papago
Indians. Ever so many centuries
ago a mammoth in its dying agonies
sought that spring for water and
fell into it, too weak to climb out
There its bones remain to this day,
and the Indians believe that If they
were removed the spring would dry
up. Of course such an event in that
region means the destruction of q
village.
Mastodon bones. of course, are
frequently dug up in the United
States. The mastodon was g kind
of elephant. but it did not belong to
the genus elephans. The mammoth
did not belong to that genus, being
known to modern science as Ele-
phans print genus. 1t often hap
pens that farmers pillow up the osse-
Gus remains of mastodons, particu-
larly in reclaimed swamps, where
anciently the gigantic beasts became
mired and died from sheer helpless
ness to get out. The tusks are com.
monty found so far decomposed that
the ivory crumbles between the fin
gers.
The first mastodon ever dug up
was found in 613. The remains of
mastodons are by no means confined
to the United States. They are dis
covered ali over the world-in Eu-
rope, Asia and Asia Minor. They
are much thicker set than the mod
ern elephant. The lower jawbone
of the full grown specimen weighs
nearly 100 pounds. The first masto-
don bones that were dug up were
supposed to be those of giants of an
earlier epoch.-Washington Star.