332 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT
The three types which existed at the same time with man were the mastodon, Mammut americanum, in North America,* also found in Russia, the straight-tusked elephant, Elephas antiquus, in Europe and southern Asia, and the hairy mammoth, Elephas primigenius, in
Europe and in northern Asia and North America. As is well known, some
remarkably well-preserved specimens of the last-named type have been
found in Siberia, one of the most impressive being that found in 1900,
on the Beresovka, Siberia, eight hundred miles west of Bering Strait,
and sixty miles north of the boundary of the Arctic Circle. The remains
show unmistakable evidences of a violent death, probably resulting from
a fall into a hidden ice crevasse. In the animal's mouth could still be
seen pieces of grass partly masticated and unswallowed, and a fractured
hip indicated a disabling injury from the fall. The frantic efforts the
mammoth must have made to extricate itself from its icy prison are
testified to by a mass of clotted blood in its chest resulting from the
bursting of a blood vessel. This mammoth's hide was covered with an
under coat of woolly, yellowish-brown hair and an outer bristly coat,
shading from fawn colour to a dark brown or black. On the chin and the
breast this hair reached a length of at least half a yard. The remains
have been set up in the Petrograd Museum of Natural History as nearly
as possible in the same position in which they were found, the skeleton
being placed alongside in a walking posture·!
This Beresovka mammoth, as it is now commonly called, was first reported by a Lamut named Tarabykni, who was out
*Mastodons
of peculiar type also existed in South America, probably contemporary
with primitive man; the true elephants did not reach that continent.
See W. B. Scott, 1913, "History of the Land Mammals oi the Western
Hemisphere," p. 436.
tBichard
S. Lull, Ph. D., "The Evolution of the Elephant," Annual Report (1908)
of the Smithsonian Institution, pp. 652, 653. The plate in the present
work is from a photograph sent by F. Loewinson-Lessing, of the Imperial
Museum of Natural History, Petrograd.
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