QUALITIES OF IVORY 235
This
is due to the non-conducting properties of the material, and also to
its preservation frozen in ice for many thousand years. In fact, one
mammoth was found with skin and flesh so well preserved that it was
traced by following the dogs who had eaten of it for years. The first
notice of these remains was given by natives in 1799, when the body was
probably still nearly or quite intact, but when Adams secured it, in
1806, much of it had been eaten, and the tusks had been removed by a
native. In all some dozen remains in this condition have been found in
Siberia, the earliest being discovered in 1787 in the Alasega River.*
However,
only about 15 per cent, of this ivory is of very good quality; some 17
per cent, is fairly good, but the remainder is worthless·! Fossil ivory
when scraped emits a fetid odour, due to decomposition and the presence
of sulphurated hydrogen gas. Holtzapffel notes the finding in these
Siberian fields of a tusk weighing 186 pounds, which was cut up for
piano keys.| An interesting circumstance connected with the finding of
these fossil remains is that, in 1722, Peter the Great gave orders to
the provincial governors of the region to make diligent search to
secure a complete skeleton of the extinct mammal.
Mammoth
ivory is found along the banks of the streams flowing into Kotzebue
Sound, Alaska, more especially the Kowak, Buckland, and Selawik, in
Eschscholtz Bay, etc. The deposits, which are uncovered by freshets and
the recession of ice cliffs, include both teeth and tusks, some of
them still in very fair condition, though many are black and hard.
Decayed mammoth ivory of a bluish hue is sometimes ground up by the
Eskimo and used as a pigment for
*Lydekker, "The Royal Natural History." Vol. II, London, 1894, p. 544. fLydekker, op. cit.. Vol. II, p. 545.
{Charles Holtzapffel, "Turning and Mechanical Manipulation," Vol. I, London, 1843, p. 138, note.
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