The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1899-08-20
HUvrIEe TIM MAMMorH.
poa Captains story of His Discovery
ON the New siberian Islands.

rious thing" said sea captain In the Alaskan
business, whose ship was locked at the little
port OF San Pedro, made famous by the au-
thor OF Two Years Before the Mast" The
man was half way up a hill that reached from
the waterfront to the town. and with q
| friend was looking at a mass Of shells that
formed stratum. of unknown depth, which
extended as far as the eye could see. It was
a section Of the old sea bottom. that mil
lion years or more before had been under wa
| ter. but was now from 40 to 800 feet above
tidewater Where the streets of Los An
geles now are, whales swan about, the shore
line being far inland along the base OF the
sierras; and such places as the Mojave
Desert and the fiat lands near Elsinor were
| lagoons or bays or arms OF the sea.
| This makes me think OF an elephant
hunt l went on once In Siberia said the
seaman. mot for live elephants. but for dead
ones; as perfect as on the day they died.
| was whaling and our ship put in that lone
| ly land known the New Siberian Islands
! One day when 1t was fairly pleasant took
a run ashore. and the first thing saw was
a ledge Of shelly earth like this; and out
Of 1t extended tusk OF ivory that must have
weighed over 200 pounds, twisted and bent
In curious fashion. l dug 1t out, but broke
| 1t In several places. 1t was so old that the
| ivory was not In the very best shape, being
weather. beaten In parts. Anyway II started
| US to thinking. and we determined to col
| lect all the tusks we could and take our
chances. So the next day we began a regu-
lar elephant hunt. as these tusks belonged
once to the biggest animal that ever lived
the hairy mammOth pic
can tell you. 1t was forty degrees below
zero some days. and half the time blew
gale, but this feature made the hunting pos
sible. It blew the snow away and left what
were evidently sand dunes and shell heaps
bare We wintered near there. though
and In the spring, when the apology for a
| thaw came, we got to work. In some places
1t looked as though q dozen elephants had
died together. and were buried In the sand
pit; nearly all were frozen.
"one day one Of the men came rushing into
camp and said that he had found a live ele-
plant; he had seen It move-its hair tusks.
and everything. The fellow was democrat
lied. We followed him to the spot and he
pointed up the cliff to a big hole from which
he swore the elephant had walked crawl
cd up the little divide, and looking over
saw the sight Of my life. There was a CO.
lossal elephant lying on the ground 1t had.
indeed, rolled out Of the big hole where II
had been caught ages before. Some Of the
men, probably, had a crazy idea that the ami
NAL might be alive. as all the natives have
yarns or legends to that effect II really
required some courage to walk up to II, It
was such hideous looking brute: but we
moved on and soon stood by its side. There
was an elephant that had been in cold-sto-
rage, perhaps, two million years, but 1t was
as fresh as though II had fallen by our rifles
The eye even was perfect The animal Ind
been buried about fifty feet from the sur
face In the heart of the tundra. and tho
melting snow had washed II out, 30 that II
had fallen by ita own weight and rolled down
the slope. 1t was uncanny monster
covered with long, struggling. red hair. its
trunk looking like huge snake and out
beneath curved the remarkable tusks that
give SO striking an appearance to the man.
moth Each one almost formed a circle and
was splendid specimen. II could have
transported the monster to America or En-
rope as he was it would have made the for
tune OF the entire crew, but we had m
way to keep him. I made an effort to save
the skin, which I had packed In salt. and
but for the fact that our ship was wrecked
saved It, There are enough tusks buried in
the New Siberian Islands to provide the
world with ivory for a century TO come II
OF an inferior quality, but brings a good
price, and Is collected by the native traders
who cache II In winter and keen several
natives at work all the time
"nat would the mammoth be worth in
America! Why, you couldn't set a price on
sucn tning; It would be priceless All the
museums In Europe and America would bid
on IT. They have found two such elephants.
one was discovered by q Russian and he
succeeded In getting a rope about It and
tylng II to the bank; but It was at the
season of the spring floods. and the water
rose 30 rapidly that he had to stand and
see the valuable carcass go floating avay
on the crest Of the flood. Another was
found by some natives on the shore of the
Arctic Ocean. A landslide occurred IN the
tundra and exposed q portion Of the animal
frozen as hard as rock thirty feet up the
face OF the cliff The news finally reached
white man three years later, and he
started from st. Petersburg bound to have
It, He got there a year after he had start
ed, having spent six months trying to ind
the men who had discovered the body. When
he did find them they said that II had fall
en- out, and that they had taken one tusk-
all tney could carry-and sold II to some
dealer from Moscow. He hired one of the
men to show him the way, and after a long
and tedious journey found the elephant,
but about 1t was a snarlins pack Of foxes.
$3.50 iipiAi 'he huPt IL, u was EVIL
dent that bears and other largo animals
had Toasted on this great creature. whose
flesh was still fresh. All that was secured
was the almost perfect skeleton, a few
pounds of hair. and one Of the eyes taken
from the side of the head that happened TO
be downward. This was delivered to dis
tinguished surgeon, who pronounced IL as
perfect as the eye of an animal that had
recently died.
after long hunt the traveller found
the remaining tusk, tracing Il halfway
across Russia to the fair OF Mini Novgorod,
where he bought 1t. and to-day the almost
complete skeleton can be seen IN the muse
um at st. Petersburg From this Prof
Ward of Rochester made his wonderful re-
storatlons. one Of which, accurate In every
detail, can be seen at Coronado Beach
Some years ago." continued the skip
per, they found a rhinoceros in the flesh
In Siberia The animal had wandered along
what ia now the Lena River and fallen into
crevasse and been frozen. It was a third
larger than any living rhinoceros: had two
horns one OF which was four and one-half
foot fha hndu