The Discovery of the Mammoth.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 168, 4 September 1886, Page 6

The Discovery of the Mammoth.

At the close of the laeft -century, a poor $aWan ( nlmed'' B**^^ ' through ttha oold Bibetiaii^ouyitry^ apdjs lwf in Jheipu p|.% e> Arcttosea, , In tthe Eutnmer he plied his vocation on the sea | jjooBf. a Hn'd 'dnrUig*fcttift&ngr wihWfrvfed fatup thWiverJ-whctfe it, j s ac> littleW,arm\&r. t It is' safe to B»y' thabShumarhoff .w.Qiild never haYb v made a- great -noise irtfthe . ■world— iri^ fadtp w*6ukU never, have\been. heard iof —had it* not' been'for j^jficoveW he made' whilefcoming. down' the ; liver 6ne spririgi'* Trftj river banks of*jtbis' cold r eountry are/quite peculiar. -ihThdse jon the wesie^n'eide^arefgenerally low. and- ; marsny,' -wliikf those 'on 'the "eastern are Olten^ front f slxty> to *on'eT hundred ,feet* in » height. 1 ' In the extr^avj^north I,'1 ,' .this thigh elevation is* Cut into* numerous' pyramidal^ shaped : moundt?"whioh,' viewed from -the sea" '05 ri ver, look ' exad» ly 'as if- thoyi had been, built by man. In the summer, these strange formations are .free from *shW," > a*nd to a , depth* of t ; but below ttiitf'tbby are continually frozen,- aud'huve'Deen 5 for u,^ told ages'.' 1 hey are formed 'of^la'yers-of eartK and '.ice-^-sbmetime^'a; clear * stratum of th'e' latter many feet inf thickness.' fti * " . It was before such' a nioufnd that our fisher* man stooped,' 'dumb witbf a'atonish'menVone' springjhOrning, 'sb manjMyVarß'a'gtf. 1 , j 'About 3Qft above'him; half way tip the lace-df ! the .mound, appeared the' section' of 'a'gre'a'ticeJayer/ from ]whicb? the water Vas 'fioAving 1 iri 1 numberless streams'; while protruding frbni it, and partly hanging over," was an animal pf such huge proportions that the ' eimple fisherman cduld' hardly 'believe 'laia eyes. Two gigantic horns or tusks were visible, and a great woolly ! body was faintly outlined in the blue, icy mass! In the fall, he told the story to his comrades tip the. river, and in the ensuing spring,, with a party of his fellow fishermen, he again visited the spot. A year had worked wonders,, The great mass had thawed out sufficeutlyto show its nature, and on closer inspection proved to be a well-preserved specimen of one of those gigantic extinct hairy elephants that roamed over the, northern ■ parts of Europe and America in the earlier age 3 of the world. The body was still too firmly attached and frozen to permit of removal. For four suqeeesive years the fishermen visited it, until finally, in Marcty 1804, five years after its original discovery, it broke away from itq icy bed and camo thundering down upon the sands below. The discoverers first detached the tucks, that were 9ft Gin. in length, and together weighed 3601b. The hide, covered with wool and hair, was more thap twenty men could lift. Part of this, with the tusks, were taken to Jakutsk and sold for fifty rubles, while . the rest of the animal was left where it fell, and cut up at various times by the Jakoutee, who fed their dogs with its flesh. A strange fea&t this, truly— m eat that had been frozen solid in the ice* house of Nature perhaps fifty thousand year 3. (According to Sir William Logan, from five hundred thousand to one million years ago.] more or less ; but so well was it preserved , that, when the brain was afterwards compared with that of a recently killed animal, no difference in the tissues could be. detected. Two years after the animal had fallen from the cliff, the news reached St. Petersburg, and. the Museum of , Natural History sent a scientist to secure the specimen and purchase it for the Emperor. Be found the mammoth where it originally fell, but much torn by animals, especially by the white bears < and foxes. The massive skeleton, however, was entire, with the exception of one fore leg, while all the other bones were still held togther by the ligaments and flesh, as if the animal had been dead only a few weeks. The neck was still covered by a long mane of reddish .wool, and over hirty , pounds more of the same coloured wool or hair were collected by the scientist from the adjacent sand, into which it had been trodden by bears and other animals of prey. In this condition the mammoth, with the tueke, which were repurchased in Jakutek, was taken to Sfc. Petersburg, and there mounted. Its length is 2(jfb,including the curve of the tusks ; it stands 16ft high, and when alive it probably* weighed more than twice as much as the largest living elephant. And, as some tusks have been found over 15ft in length, we may reasonably conclude that Shumarhoff s mammoth is only an average specimen, and that many, of its companions were considerably larger. Imagine the spectacle of a large herd of these mighty creatures rushing along over the frozen ground, the reverberation of their tread sounding like thutder. When enraged, their , wild, headlong course must have been one of terrible devastation. Large trees were but twigs to these giants of the north, and everything must have given way before them. Tusks of this animal bad been discovered, previous to Shumarhoffa find,, and have been found since in such great quantities' that vessels go out for the sole purpose of. collecting them. Escholt Bay, near Behring Strait, is a famous place for them, and number 3 have also been found in England. It is stated ■ that the fishermen of , &^ppis r , burgh have dredged up over 2,000 mammoth teeth during the past 12 years—a fact showing, that a once favourite resort, or perhaps> burying- ground, of these great creatures is, now covered by the ooean. In the .cliffs, of Northern • Alaska remains, of , the mammoth are v of tern .seen, and;,, the New,' Siberian Islands, < recently visited^, by the Arctic explorer, t ßaron t'JKordensjqld, are, liberally supplied with. these, as*well>aB re\- 4 1 mains of other and: equally.; interesting extinot aud fossil 'animals..' «> The' mammoth was so-called from? a; curious belief among the Siberians that this enormous 1 animal lived in caverns under after the fashiojajoi t^ja,mole. 'Many of the tusks and bones' werVfoundf buried in the frozen e'a'fthf and it wa ? s'the'%atu¥al < cbnolu-' sion that the animal livedthere when aliv^i TneyyKelieved f it could ribrb ( ear the* light cfday, * and "kb/dug 'out «witK; its^uske-great-tutmels'in the f eartTi. M t "• « I * l^ '•-' • 1 •"*<'