The Forrest City times., 1908-03-06
ing upon what the animal lived. So

NiNIu IS HIS description that 1t IS worth while to reproduce it.
 Picture to yourself an elephant with a body covered with thick fur. about 13 feet in height and 15 in length, with tusks eight feet long. thick, and curving outward at their ends, a stout trunk of six feet in length, colossal limbs of 1R feet is thickness, and tail, naked up to the end, which was covered with thick tufty hair. The animal was fat. and well grown; death had overtaken him Tn the fullness of his powers His parchment-like, large, naked ears lay turned up over his head. about the shoulders and the back he had stiff hair, about foot in length, like a mane. The long outer hair was deep brown, and ecarsely rooted. The top of the head looked so wild and so penetrated with pitch that 1t resem. bled the rind Of an oak tree On the sides 1t was cleaner, and under the out. CT hair there appeared everywhere a wool, very soft, warm and thick. and of failow-brown color. The giant was well protected against the cold.
 The whole appearance of the ant nal was fearfully strange and wild. IL had not the shape of our present elephants As compared with our Indian elephants, it's head was rough, the brain base low and narrow, but the trunk and mouth were much larger The teeth were very power. ful. Our elephant is an awkward ani- maj, but compared with this mammoth it is an Arabian steed to a coarse. ugly dray horse I could not divest myself of feeling of fear as ap- preached the head; the broken, widely open eyes gave the animal an appear ance of life, as though it might move In moment and destroy us with roar. The bad smell of the body warned us that it was time to save what We could, and the swelling flood, too, bade us hasten. =. But l had the stomach separated and brought on one side. It was well filled, and the con- tents instructive and we'll preserved. The principal were young shoots of the fir and pine; quantity of young fir cones, also in a chewed state, were mixed with the moss"
 still more recently even as late as 1902. a complete skeleton was found on the banks of the Beresovka river in northeastern Siberia. The entire skin as Well as the skeleton of this has been brought to St. Petersburg, and after being stuffed has been erected in the position in which it was found. Evidently the animal was browsing on the bank of frozen precipice. where the footing was more insecure than he supposed. While he was stetching out for a tempting morsel of herb- age the foundation gave away beneath him and he slid backward, landing in a position from which he could not ex- tricate himself, and was there buried by fresh ayalanches from the preci- pice and by the accumulation of sedi- ment from the stream and frozen up for preservation.
 The fresh condition of these skele- tons in Siberia and Alaska, together with the occurrence of skeletons in connection with flint instruments, gives evidence that the animal contin- ued to survive after the advent of man, so as to be for some time con- temporary of the human race on both continents, points to the recent ex- tinction of the animal. and raises the very interesting question as to what causes could have led to this result
 Evidence that man and the mann moth were for a considerable time contemporaries comes from various quarters. In Siberia 12 feet below the surface of a cliff which stands 136 feet above the present level of the River Obi. a skeleton of a mammoth was found. associated with numerous flint implements indicating the pres ence of man, while the large bones Of the animal were split in the usual way of the savages for extracting the marrow.
 In numerous places in Europe the bones of the animal have been found both in the river gravel and in caves "sSONiatSu III SilAildi LdHucl Mill flint implements, while the picture of the mammoth carved upon piece of ivory in prehistoric times found in a cave of La Madeleine. Perigord. France, is so lifelike that it must have been made by one who was familiar with the animal. In Wisconsin one of the mounds of the mound builders so perfectly represents the elephant that it is hardly possible to doubt the familiarity of the builders with this animal.