Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1901-10-24
FROZEN SOLID FOR AGES.
Body of Mammoth Found in a Re
markable State of Preservation.

|
markabe State of Preservation.
The body of a mammoth, says the
| New York Sun, which had been frozen
solid in the tundra of Siberia for many
hundreds of years, was recently
brought to light in the northeast part
of that remote region. 1t was one of
the best-preserved specimens of these
prehistoric elephants yet discovered.
Refrigeration, continued for centuries,
had done its work so perfectly that the
animal. without doubt, as first ex-
posed to view, was a most excellent
representative of its ancient family.
Its reddish. woolly hair, its skin and
stomach were found the undigested re-
mains of its last dinner.
The find was made near the settle
ment of Kolymsk, on the koima river,
in one of the coolest districts of the
world. About 600 miles to the south
west is Verkhoyansk, which is called
the winter cold pole of the Northern
Hemisphere 1t being the coolest re-
gion known. The mean temperature
in January Is Sc degrees below zero,
Fahrenheit. and sometimes the mer-
curry falls as low as So degrees below
zero. They tried, years ago, TO sink
a well at YakutsB, west of this cold
pole, but gave it up after they had
sunk about 100 feet without any sign
that they would ever dig their way
below solidly frozen ground.
1t is in this region of perpetually
frozen tundra that so large a guam
tity of mammoth remains have been
found. The bones of the mammoth
are found all over northern Europe
and Asia. from England to Behring
strait. but ii is only in the frozen
tundra that the animal has been found
intact just as il died ages ago. The
latest discovery being an unusually
fine specimen OF the complete mann
moth. it was thought worth while to
send an expedition this summer from
st. Petersburg to Kolymsk to secure
the animals skeleton The party ar
rived at Yakutsk on the way TO that
settlement on June IA last.
The New Siberian Islands have been
a great source Of mammoth ivory. Il
has been proved that the mammoth
was contemporaneous with prehis-
toric man One of these proofs waS
discovered In the New Siberian Iss-
ands, where Hendenstrom picked uy
an AK made of mammoth tusk The
skeleton of the animal can easily be
produced from the bones that have
been found far across the northern
part of the Old Void. The mastodou
of America, of which a considerable
Of perfect skeletons are founa
in our museums, is closely related To
the mammoth.
Very few fossil animals have shared
with the mammoth the distinction
OF having been preserved, not only by
their skeletons, but, in some instances,
also in their flesh. A number of per.
feet specimens with flesh and cover
ing Of wool and long hair have been
found in the frozen banks along the
Lena river. Latter-day dogs have
eaten with apparent relish the flesh
of this extinct species. One Of these
Siberian mammoths was 16 2-3 feet
long and Q 1-3 feet in height. These
complete specimens, however, are
rare and the news is heralded far and
wide when one of them is found.
They we're probably living later than
the Ice age, which, measured by geo
logical time, was not so very long ago.