The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1909-08-06
ENCASED M ice.

was cleaner, and under the outer hair
there. appeared everywhere q wool,
very soft, warm and thick. and Of .
fallow-brown color. The giant was
we'll protected against the cold.
THE whole appearance of the ami
NAL was fearfully strange and wild.
1t had not the shape Of our present
elephants. As compared with our In
dian elephants, its nsad was rough,
the brafn-base low and narrow, but
the trunk and mouth were much lar
ger. The teeth were very powerful.
Our elephant is an awkward animal.
but compared with this mammoth it
Is an Arabian steed to a coarse, ugly
dray horse. could not divest N.Y.
self Of feeling of fear as I ap-
preached the head; the broken, wide
~ open eyes gave the animal an ap-:
pearance of life, as though it might
move In a moment and destroys us
with a roar. j.. The bad smell
of the body warned us that it was
time to save what we could, and the
swelling flood, too, babe us hasten.
But had the stomach sep
arated and brought on one side. It
was we'll filed, and the contents in
structive and we'll preserved. The
principal were young shoots Of the fir
and pine; a 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 brink of a frozen
precipice, where the footing was more
insecure than he supposed. While he,
was stretching out for tempting
morsel of heritage the foundation
gave away beneath him and he slid
down backward, landing in a position
from which he could not extricate
himself, and was theer buried by fresh
avalanches from the precipice and by
the accumulation of sediment from tho
stream and frozen up for preserva-
ton.
The fresh condition of these skele-
tons in Siberia and Alaska, together
with the occurrence of skeletons in
connection with flint Implements,
gives evidence that the animal con-
tinued to survive after the advent of
man, so as to be for some time a con-
temporary Of the human race on
both continents, points to the recent
extinction of the animal, and raises
the very interesting question as to
what causes could have led to this
result.
Evidence that man and the man.
moth were for considerable time
contemporaries comes from various
quarters. In Siberia twelve feet be-
low the surface of cliff which stands
130 feet above the present level of
the River Obi, a skeleton of a man.
moth was found, associated with nu-
merous flint implements, indicating
the presence Of man, while the large
bones of the animal were split in the
usual way Of 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
associated in a similar manner with
flint implements, while the picture of
the mammoth carved upon a 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 Wis
consin one of the mounds of the
mound builders SO perfectly repre-
sents the elephant that it is hardly
possible to doubt the familiarity Of
the builders with this animal.