THE MAMMOTH.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LVI, Issue 6504, 31 December 1881, Page 6

THE MAMMOTH.

(Pw« ito Timn.) The distri’eulioa of the mammoth throughout time and spmo is a subject very full of iatoretl. The name itself is now sufficiently familiarised among us, Ihouph Itkof Sarooied origin, and is still, we bells vs, in use by th* Natives of Samoioda, a district of theEoi*ia& Eaipira lying at tha oxtotmo north-tort augk id ftsul bo?dcrittj( oft Sibctii* It it applied to Siberia to burrowing- animals, and whra Srrtmed, a* derignatmg the great extinct hairy ricphsnt iEiiphatyrimiemut), it *#« so, »o doubt, under Hi« ImpreMiaa that liras hug# bsarts were burrowm under ground j but in Wcrtorn Eurocc it know altogether associated with th# idea ■ol something of great state, Th* rang# of tho mammoth in rewn: limes was over rather more than one-half of lb# present land surface of tbs world, (I;is brief a wider geographical range than that of any other extinct form ,of elephant. As to . its- range,, in time, it ww th* opinion of the Into Dr Falconer that it was a pre-gkcial as - well as a post-glacial inhabitant ol Britain—a view which vu sot at first accepted, but which Protonor Boyd Dawkins, in a.- memoir ■ laid before th# Gtographieal Society of London, now fully justifies. That Jl was pregloria) in the South of England b» proved by the discjvcry of Frcfeseor Preslwich some SO years ago of s tooth and tusk in -a- hedrf gravel underneath the boaldto clay of Bridket Wood, in the railway culling between Watford and 8t Albans. The animal to which these remain* belonged was, therefore, living within the area of the London basin before it cu submerged beneath that are upon which at on® lisa* iceberg# were earned aa for couth a* lb* line of the Thamto II was also most. probably pre-glacial in SeoUand j but it* occurrence at this epoch In Cheshire erams put bt joed a doubt by the discovery made by Mr* Blossom in March, 1893, in linking a shaft for the difcarery c£ salt scar Nurthwich. The travelling cylinder used in the operation cal through the foml tooth of “ some gigantic animal." which ms sent to ProfcworDawkb* for identification. It proved to be a frtgcnrcl of the last truexoolar of the left sided tbs lower jaw of a mammoth. The quicksand, with- iU layers of pebbles, la which it «u found, hao been proved to he even older than the first stage ol the etscla! period. These discoveries add a good deal to tho probability that the numerous remrios of th* mammoth cast up by the sea at the foot of the Norfolk cliff are those of animals belraciog to the peculiar fauna of the proglam) forest-bed. In the Tate pleistocene deposit* of Britain the remains of the mammolh ore most abundantly met -with. . While tbe temperature was becoming sufficiently lowered to aßcw of vast masses of Ire depositing their burdens over Britain north of She Lewcr Severn and the tho animal would so doubt have been pothod southwards into other districts where rite cl mate was not eo severe j when the conditions of life became Iras trying, it found Its way along tbe river valleys of the country at far nort h as Yorkshire on the east, and the line of the Trent and Holyhead do tbe wmt North of this ime it is met with neither in tbe postglacial deposit* of Bind nor of gravel. For tha feet Professor Dawkins would account by. a surmise that this area was defended from an revision of the mammoths by a system of glacier# radiating from the kills of Wales, Cumberland, tbe Pennine Chain and Scotland, which did not melt away much before tbe mammoth became extinct. Throughout the continent of Europe it alco roamed. Ite remains are found in enormous abundance in France. In Spain it has been met with in the rice mines of Santander by President Sullivan and Professor ffßsulr. It is abundant in Northern and Soataern Germany, though it has not been found north of m lice passing through Hambore, nor in any pwtof ffeandinavia or Finland. When the volcanoes of Central Italy were active, pouring stream* of lava and throwing dense cloud* of ashes over tbe site of the Imperial dry, the mammoth lived in the neighbourhood of Borne. Its real home, however, wa« Northern Asia. In Siberia it formerly existed in countless herds. This, we have seen, was the country whence it got Ite popular same. Its tusks, well preserved In tbe frozen drift, have for ages been eolkctrd in Immense numbers as articles ol commerce, supplying, it is said, nearly the whole of the ivory hi use in Rote Se. Whole toroseses of tbe animal have been found in the frozen drift in the most perfect condition—«o perfect that oven microtropical erotism* of some of their delicate internal Hamas have been made therefrom. The wonderful protemtioo of these was no doubt due to their haring been entombed directly after death and then quickly frozen up—a process which by no msone necessarily implies that climatic renditions Mien existed very unlike thorn of the present lime in Siberia. In nnoitmlly worn) epriugf, the wars waters fe mm - down by tbe great rivers from tbrir eourow in the south will thaw the

fn»«n momm with immense rapidity. It' was in thoejwepttooally warm of 184®, a» w# are told by Hiddeadorf, that the mammoth dbeovered tor Lieutenant Benkendorf on the banka of the ladlghhlm vm thawed out of the hard Uo*bound tundra until it was mealed to the astonished eyes of the beholder standing upright on its Let in th® tmitioo la which St had hem bogged* The ekio was - found clothed with long, black haire, teirtb which there nn eo*t of reddish wool. The thaw

In that year proceeded so rapidly that Lisu* tenant Benkendorf nod Us CMmsl# narrowly escaped the alternative of being either cn* toiahtd in the soft nones or of being swept out oort hands into the Arolio Baa— « it

Imppeoed, Me mammoth was-there to loin that ml MMinhbfe of the remain* of Imm and other animats (hat after a like fashion

had gone before* Tlie terth of this animal are »l*o found in other paste of Russian Asia* Ao enterpn«la« AraUac traveUer, Abao elCsedm.' writing in the tenth century, tolls us of fowl! ivory brought for sale to Khiva, The following is from the original Arabic manuscript, ae translated byM. 0. IPOneeoa into french s~* ' " la Bulfnrn they often find fossil bones of an immense six*. I have seen one tooth of no less than two bands wide by four is length They also dig out from the earth teeth like those used as organs of defease by the elephants. They are as white as snow *nd weigh about 200 means. The antma t hat prod need them i» unknown, but they were brought from Khorargur (Kbin), where they fetched a big price. 'Jhese teeth are mwiufftciared into oombs, vanes, and pooh objects, jus*, at ivory j hat they are mom durable than ivory, tor the subetonee never brrake.''

Ocming mat to Aria Minor, it Loot with* out interest to note that the remains of th® elephant oiewvored near- Frteroum wore dstermlasd by Dr Falconer to be intermediate tietwren those of the mammoth and the

existing Indian elephant. 8o», Ibt* Ulier wo* living (a the niter «f the Btupbrato* tu the 16th roatavy before Christ when that dlrtrirt wa* Invaded bjr the Egyptians, rioee a mil bunting of elephant* by the Pharaoh ibothme* 111. In the neighbourhood of Nineveh ha* been recorded in as Egyptian, inscription published hjr M. Chafed* in hit " I tad<« lur idtforiqu# d’eprib tee routcra E|ypliimttc*." this Inpcrtoml dl«*auff bring* , the ErMroiim elephant (IP. itmmfacnt) Into the very same gene graphics! aka o* iht Indian elephant, and arm to show that the extinct and living elephant* of Aria Wi« in ancient times not repainted from each other by any lm« pawablb ''-geographical barrier# or by nidi ' ioaoto of : desert or mountain, the mammoth ranged »w the whole of North America from the cliff* of Kechotullay a* far aotitho# the Isthmus of Darieu—that i*. if we may take for granted that the sprue* »>f elephai described by American an?hors era but vsricUe* of the •*m# original spccira of mammoth—varieties chiefly detrending on difference* in the vela-! tire width and comsueis of the plate* of dentine of which, with more or lere of cement and layer* of enamel, the molar teeth are composed.’ Three varieties might be grouped into two chwifi—thoia in which these plaice are. narrow, and IhoM in which they ere wide i and it U important to note a singular foci in the distribution of three two, for whether in Europe, or Ail*, or America, the varieties with the grinders composed of narrow plates haa it* headquarter# towards the northern portions of tnes* Continent*, and that with the grinders composed of brood plate* replace* the former toward* the south. There can be little doubt but that these differences were brought about by the use >n the north of a somewhat more woody hind of food t while in the south a soft, succulent herbage compered their diet. - Another pint considered' by Professor Dawkins is toe reMtonahip of the mammoth to the Indian elephant on the other side of the barrier of the deserts and mountains of Central Asia. On analysing all the character* of the dentition, the ridge-formula and the succession of the teeth arc found to be almost the seme in both j indeed, the differences noticed would seem to be merely of degree and not of kind. The differences found in the other parts of the skeleton are of the same nature. Tbe differences In the clothing sweat ini eight more difficult to understand j the skin of the Indian elephant is thick and soft and of a daik*brown cwl-'-ur j with the exception of a few hairs on c ertain parte of its body, it is naked—although it is here important to note that, according to good authority, individuals found in the elevated districts of Northern India are more hairy than those inhabiting warmer regions, and Sir J. 1. Tennant tolls us that the young are always born covered with a woolly fleece. Darwin also bis suggested that it is pro* bahle that existing elephants have lost their hairy covering through exposure to great tropical heats. It is, therefore, quite possible that the possession of hair ana wool may have depended to a large extent on climate, so that even the covering of the mammoth cannot be regarded as constituting it a* a quite distinct specie*. If this be so, we may, perhaps, regard the mammoth as the ancestor of the Indian elephant, and it becomes possible to believe that this latter took upon itself those trifling characters in which it differs from the mammoth in those untold ages through which It roamed almost undisturbed in tbe won* drone forests of Icdia—agcs of vast duration, but which sink into insignificance compared with those daring which the mammoth lived, If those still fresh, froxen-up oarcassee on the banks of the river Lena in Siberia could tell their tale, commencing at the pre-glacial epoch, over what counties* ages would it not extend!

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