236 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT
decorating
masks, beluga hats, finger rattles, etc.; in other cases the material
is worked up into ladles, spoons, skin scrapers, and the like.*
The
group known as the Liakov Islands, the principal ones being Liakov's
Island, Moloi, and Kotelnoi, was named by order of Empress Catherine II
of Russia, for the discoverer, a fur hunter, who landed on one of
these islands in 1770. Examination of the soil revealed the presence of
enormous deposits of fossil ivory. Subsequent exploration resulted in
the discovery of the other islands of this group, all presenting
similar conditions. Indeed, to some of these early explorers it almost
appeared as though the islands were built up out of these fossil
remains. When the ice-covered sand cliffs were thawed by the summer
sun, the surface would slip down, bearing along great quantities of
mammoth tusks and bones. In 1806 Sirovatskoi discovered the island
later known as New Siberia and several others in its vicinity. New
Siberia proved to be the richest of all these islands of the Arctic Sea
in fossil remains, and we learn that, in 1809, 10,000 pounds of fossil
ivory was taken thence, while in 1821 the production rose to 20,000
pounds; the supply seemed to be inexhaustible, f It has been noted that
the ivory taken in New Siberia is whiter than that from the mainland of
Siberia.
Various
theories have been advanced to explain the presence of the mammoth
remains in such extraordinary abundance. It is supposed that
geological changes, the sinking of the land, gradually forced these
mammals to the higher ground, and finally to the tops of the hills,
which had become isolated from the mainland as islands. There being
little means of subsistence left for the animals, they per-
*Communication of G. T. Emmons, of Princeton, N. J.
fRev. D. Gath Whitley, "The Ivory Islands of the Arctic Ocean," in the Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute, Vol. XLII, pp. 85-57, London, 1910.
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