Golden Valley chronicle. (Beach, Billings County, N.D.) 1905-1916, 1908-03-06

In Great Herds In Northern lati-
tudes, including North America
Tusks Found in Great Quantities.
~ g. FREDERICK WRIGHT, A. NJ,
[Author OF 'Ice Age in North America"
''Man and the Glacial PERIOD"
"Asiatic Russia" etc.]
Copyright, by Joseph b. Bowles)
The mammoth is an extinct species
of elephant which was formerly spread
all over Europe, northern Asia and
North America as far north as Mex
leo. In size he was somewhat larger
than the elephant. Whereas Jumbo
stood II feet high, the mammoth skel-
eton set up in the museum in the Chi
cago Academy of Sciences stands 10
feet as mounted, which would make
him some IA feet high when alive.
The tusks Of the mammoth were enor-
nous. Those of one found In Texas,
and now mounted in the American Mu-
scum Of Natural History in New York
city, measured 13 feet and 10 inches,
and would weigh 200 pounds apiece.
The mammoth had trunk like the
elephant and was covered with three
suits of hair-the largest consisting
of rough black bristles 10 inches in
length, the next a coat Of close-set
hair from nine to ten inches long, and
underneath all soft, reddish wool,
about five inches long, forming a COW
erfng which would shed water, and
enabling the animal to stand any
amount of cold.
At the present time the elephant is
limited to southern Asia and to cen.
trail and southern Africa. The
Asiatic species, however, differs in
many respects from the African. The
African elephant has much larger ears
than the Asiatic; so that they COM
pletely cover the shoulder when
thrown back, sometimes being 3h feet
long and 2h wide. Its teeth are also
different from those of the Asiatic
species, and its tusks heavier. But
in both cases the tusks are much
smaller than are those of the man.
me.h.
the elephant first appeared in the
middle Tertiary deposits Of northern
India. From that center, still occu-
pied by the species, it seems to have
spread outward to the limits of the
n,xthern hemisphere. In the later
Tertiary period species is found fos-
sill throughout Europe, while still
later the species known as the nam.
moth, Or, in technical terms, elephas
primigenius, was, as already said,
spread in great numbers over north
ern Asia and North America as far
south as the Gulf of Mexico, and all
over Europe north of the Mediterran-
! can. In these regions he survived the
glacial period, and fingered until some
time after the advent of man.
In Siberia the mammoth wandered
down the valleys of all the large rivers
running into the Arctic ocean, where
so many of them left their carcasses
that for centuries their tusks have
formed most important export to the
ivory markets of the world. During
the years 1928 as many as 2,770
mammoth tusks, weighing from 40
to 100 pounds each, making total of
200 tons, were entered at the London
docks. Up to the present time the
ivory hunters in northern Siberia
come back heavily laden with this val.
liable material, and it forms con-
slant means of barter with China. The
long string of camels which carry tea
from China across the desert of Cobb
to Siberia return laden in no small de-
gree with fresh mammoth tusks
brought up from the mouth of the
Yenisei, the Lena and the Indigirka
river.
One of the most remarkable facts
concerning the distribution of the
mammoth is brought to light in the
discovery Of their skeletons in great
numbers upon the New Siberian is
lands, far out beyond the mouth Of
the Lena river, and Of similar discov-
cries on the Pribilof islands in Bering
sea. On the shores of Alaska north Of
the Yukon river the bones of the NAM
moth are very numerous in the frozen
soil. So fresh are the remains that,
as the sun thaws them out on expos
IRE, the air is tainted with the odor
Of decaying flesh.
The remains Of the mammoth are
found chiefly in post-glacial deposits.
They occur In the post-glacial river
gravels all over the north temperate
zone, and beneath the deposits of loess
(Which are connected with the close of
the glacial period) in the Missouri val
ley. But the situation in which they