352 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT
Klondyke
region, while that brought to Nome usually comes from Eschscholtz Bay
or from the Buckland or Kobuk rivers. Pieces of tusks shaped into sled
runners were seen by Gilmore, and he also saw some sections formed into
weights for working salmon nets. A notable by-product of this Alaskan
ivory is a blue dye derived by the Eskimo from the blue phosphate of
lime (vivianite) formed by the decomposition of some of the tusks.*
The
effect of an endless chain of newspaper items, leading on to the
production of a cleverly written hoax retailing the killing of a living
mammoth in Alaska, is related by Dr. F. A. Lucas in his "Animals of the
Past." It appears that when, twenty or more years ago, the United
States revenue cutter Corwin was anchored at Kotzebue Sound in
Alaska, the natives of this region, which is rich in remains of the
extinct mammoth, brought many fine specimens on board to sell to the
visitors. When questioned as to the origin of the remains these native
Innuits replied without hesitation that no living mammoth had ever been
seen, and then asked their white questioners whether the latter had
ever seen these animals. As chance would have it, there was on board a
copy of one of the reports of the Petrograd Geographical Society,
containing a representation of the great mammoth skeleton set up in
the Petrograd Museum of Natural History. This was shown to the natives,
and they were delighted to be able to recognize the long curving tusks
with which they had grown familiar. As the skeleton, however, did not
quite satisfy them and they begged to have a picture of a living
animal, Dr. C. H. Townsend took pity on them, and having passed some
time in Ward's establishment in Rochester when a replica of the
Stuttgart restoration of a mammoth was being made, he sketched out on a
sheet of paper the animal figure
'Charles A. Gilmore, op. cit., pp. 28, 29.
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