FOSSIL ELEPHANTS AND THEIR ALLIES.
The Proboscidea, represented, as we have already seen, by two species only among living animals, both of which are met with in and near the tropical regions of the Old World, in the fossil state are met with over nearly the whole of the Old World, and of the New; and are divided into three genera—Elephas, Mastodon, and Dinotherium.
The teeth and bones of these creatures found in Europe were assigned in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries to giants, and many are the stories which were commonly reported about them—as, for example, that of the giant of Dauphiné, in the reign of Louis XIV. His remains were discovered by a surgeon, who stated that they were enclosed in an enormous sepulchre covered with a stone slab, bearing the inscription Teutobochus rex; and that in the vicinity there were also found coins or medals, all of which showed the remains to be those of a giant king of the Cimbri, who fought against Marius. However, the original owner of these bones, though not of the coins, was proved to have been an Elephant.
The story of Teutobochus is even excelled by that of another giant, called the giant of Lucerne, whose remains when dug up were examined by a celebrated Professor of Basle, who described them as of human origin, and was skilful enough to put them together so as to resemble a giant no less than twenty-six feet high. For some time the deluded people of Lucerne paid homage to this Elephantine prodigy, until the scales were removed from their eyes by Blumenbach, who pronounced to their astonished senses that the giant, as it lay in state at the Jesuits’ College, was but the skeleton of an Elephant.
The Tertiary or third great period into which the geologists divide the life history of the earth consists of the following divisions:—Eocene, Miocene, Pliocene, Pleistocene, Prehistoric, and Historic, and it is in the Pliocene stage that the Elephant first appears in Europe and America.
The large, straight-tusked Elephant (E. meridionalis), with large grinders composed of thick and coarse plates, is found ranged over the whole of France, Italy, Britain, and Germany in those times, in company with another narrow-toothed species, also with straight tusks, described by Dr. Falconer under the name of Elephas antiquus.
By far the best known and most important of these huge creatures is the far-famed MAMMOTH (Elephas primigenius). This Elephant has been found frozen in Siberian soil beautifully preserved, with the hair and tissues in so good a condition that microscopical sections have been made of them.
The story of finding the first Mammoth imbedded in ice has been often told, but is still of sufficient interest to be related again. A Tungoosian fisherman, named Schumachoff, about the year 1799, was proceeding, as is the custom of fishermen in those parts when fishing proves a failure, along the shores of the Lena in quest of Mammoth tusks, which have been there found in considerable abundance. During his rambles, having gone farther than he had done before, he suddenly came face to face with a huge Mammoth imbedded in clear ice. This extraordinary sight seems to have filled him with astonishment and awe; for instead of at once profiting by the fortunate discovery, he allowed several years to roll on before he summoned courage to approach it closely, although it was his habit to make stealthy journeys occasionally to the object of his wonder. At length, seeing, it is presumed, the terrific monster made no signs of eating him up, and that its tusks would bring him a considerable sum of money, he allowed the hope of gain to overcome his superstitious scruples. He boldly broke the barrier of ice, chopped off the tusks, and left the carcass to the mercy of the Wolves and Bears, who, finding it palatable, soon reduced the huge creature to a skeleton. Some two years afterwards a man of science was on the scent, and although so late in at the death, found a huge skeleton with three legs, the eyes still in the orbits, and the brain uninjured in the skull.
SKELETON OF MAMMOTH.
In addition to the peculiarity of the Mammoth having its body covered with long woolly hair, it was also remarkable for the extraordinary formation of its enormous tusks, which curved upwards, forming a spiral.
The eminent Siberian explorer, Dr. Middendorf, in 1843, met with a second instance of the Mammoth being preserved to such a degree that the bulb of the eye is now in the same museum as the skeleton of a Mammoth found by Mr. Adams in 1803. Middendorf found it in latitude 66° 30′ N., between the Obi and the Yenisei near the Arctic Circle. In the same year he also found a young animal of the same species in beds of sand and gravel, at about fifteen feet above the level of the sea, near the river Taimyr, in latitude 75° 15′, associated with marine shells of living Arctic species, as well as with the trunk of the larch. But the fourth, and by far the most important, discovery of a Mammoth is described by an eye-witness of its unearthing, and the record is so valuable in its bearings that we give it at some length. A young Russian engineer, Benkendorf by name, employed by the Government in a survey of the coast of the mouth of the Lena and Indighirka, was despatched up the latter stream, in 1846, in command of a small iron steam-cutter. He writes the following account, which we translate, to a friend in Germany:—
“In 1846 there was uncommon warm weather in the north of Siberia. Already in May unusual rains poured over the moors and bogs, storms shook the earth, and the streams carried not only ice to the sea, but also large tracts of land, thawed by the masses of warm water fed by the southern rains.... We steamed on the first favourable day up the Indighirka; but there were no thoughts of land. We saw around us only a sea of dirty brown water, and knew the river only by the rushing and roaring of the stream. The river rolled against us trees, moss, and large masses of peat, so that it was only with great trouble and danger we could proceed. At the end of the second day, we were only about forty versts [one verst = 1,166½ yards English] up the stream. Some one had to stand with the sounding-rod in hand continually, and the boat received so many shocks that it shuddered to the keel. A wooden vessel would have been smashed. Around us we saw nothing but the flooded land. For eight days we met with the like hindrances, until at last we reached the place where our Yakuts were to have met us. Farther up was a place called Ujandina, whence the people were to have come to us, but they were not there, prevented evidently by the floods. As we had been here in former years we knew the place. But how it had changed! The Indighirka, here about three versts wide, had torn up the land and worn itself a fresh channel, and when the waters sank we saw to our astonishment that the old river-bed had become merely that of an insignificant stream. This allowed me to cut through the soft earth, and we went reconnoitring up the new stream which had worn its way westwards. Afterwards we landed on the new shore, and surveyed the undermining and destructive operation of the wild waters, that carried away with extraordinary rapidity masses of soft peat and loam. It was then that we made a wonderful discovery. The land on which we were treading was moorland, covered thickly with young plants. Many lovely flowers rejoiced the eye in the warm beams of the sun, that shone for twenty-two out of the twenty-four hours. The stream rolled over and tore up the soft wet ground like chaff, so that it was dangerous to go near the brink. While we were all quiet, we suddenly heard under our feet a sudden gurgling and stirring, which betrayed the working of the disturbed water. Suddenly our jäger [hunter], ever on the look-out, called loudly, and pointed to a singular and unshapely object, which rose and sank through the disturbed waters. I had already remarked it, but not given it my attention, considering it only drift wood. Now we all hastened to the spot on the shore, had the boat drawn near, and waited until the mysterious thing should again show itself. Our patience was tried, but at last, a black, horrible, giant-like mass was thrust out of the water, and we beheld a colossal Elephant’s head, armed with mighty tusks, with its long trunk moving in the water, in an unearthly manner, as though seeking for something lost therein. Breathless with astonishment, I beheld the monster hardly twelve feet from me, with his half-open eyes yet showing the whites. It was still in good preservation.
“‘A Mammoth! a Mammoth!’ broke out the Tschermomori, and I shouted ‘Here quickly! chains and ropes!’ I will pass over our preparations for securing the giant animal, whose body the water was trying to bear from us. As the animal again sank we waited for an opportunity to throw the ropes over his neck. This was only accomplished after many efforts. For the rest we had no cause for anxiety, for after examining the ground I satisfied myself that the hind legs of the Mammoth still stuck in the earth, and that the water would work for us to unloosen them. We therefore fastened a rope round his neck, threw a chain round his tusks, that were eight feet long, drove a stake into the ground about twenty feet from the shore, and made chain and rope fast to it. The day went by quicker than I thought for, but still the time seemed long before the animal was secured, as it was only after the lapse of twenty-four hours that the waters had loosened it. But the position of the animal was interesting to me; it was standing in the earth, and not lying on its side or back as a dead animal naturally would, indicating by this the manner of its destruction. The soft peat or marsh land on which he stepped thousands of years ago gave way by the weight of the giant, and he sank as he stood on it feet foremost, incapable of saving himself, and a severe frost came and turned him into ice, as well as the moor which had buried him; the latter, however, grew and flourished, every summer renewing itself; possibly the neighbouring stream had heaped plants and sand over the dead body. God only knows what causes had worked for its preservation; now, however, the stream had once more brought it to the light of day, and I, an ephemera of life compared with this primeval giant, was sent here by heaven just at the right time to welcome him. You can imagine how I jumped for joy.... Picture to yourself an Elephant with a body covered with thick fur, about thirteen feet in height, and fifteen in length, with tusks eight feet long, thick and curving outwards at their ends, a stout trunk of six feet in length, colossal limbs of one foot and a half in thickness, and a tail naked up to the end, which was covered with thick tufty hair. The animal was fat and well grown; death had overtaken him in the fulness of his powers. His parchment-like, large, naked ears lay fearfully turned up over the head; about the shoulders and the back he had stiff hair, about a foot in length, like a mane. The long outer hair was deep brown and coarsely rooted. The top of the head looked so wild, and was so penetrated with pitch, that it resembled the rind of an old oak-tree. On the sides it was cleaner, and under the outer hair there appeared everywhere a wool, very soft, warm, and thick, and of a yellow brown colour. The giant was well protected against the cold. The whole appearance of the animal was fearfully wild and strange. It had not the shape of our present Elephants. As compared with our Indian Elephants, its head was rough, the brain case low and narrow, but the trunk and mouth were much larger. The teeth were very powerful. Our Elephant is an awkward animal, but compared with this Mammoth it is as an Arabian steed to a coarse ugly Dray-horse. I could not divest myself of a feeling of fear as I approached the head; the broken, widely-opened eyes gave the animal an appearance of life, as though it might move in a moment and destroy us with a roar.... The bad smell of the body warned us that it was time to save of it what we could, and the swelling flood, too, bade us hasten. First of all we cut off the tusks, and sent them to the cutter. Then the people tried to hew the head off, but, notwithstanding their good will, this was slow work. As the belly of the animal was cut open the intestines rolled out, and then the smell was so dreadful that I could not overcome my nauseousness, and was obliged to turn away. But I had the stomach separated and brought on one side. It was well filled, and the contents instructive and well preserved. The principal were young shoots of the fir and pine; a quantity of young fir cones also, in a chewed state, were mixed with the mass.”
This most graphic account affords a key for the solution of several problems hitherto unknown. It is clear that the animal must have been buried where it died, and that it was not transported from any place farther up stream to the south, where the climate is comparatively temperate. The presence of fir-spikes in the stomach proves that it fed on the vegetation which is now found at the northern part of the woods, as they join the low, desolate, treeless, moss-covered tundra, in which the body lay buried, a fact that would necessarily involve the conclusion that the climate of Siberia, in those ancient days, differed but slightly from that of the present time. Before this discovery, the food of the Mammoth had not been known by direct evidence. The circumstances under which it was brought to light enable us to see how animal remains could be entombed in the frozen soil without undergoing decomposition, which Baron Cuvier and Dr. Buckland agreed in accounting for by a sudden cataclysm, and Sir Charles Lyell by the hypothesis of their having been swept down by floods from the temperate into the arctic zone. In this particular case, the marsh must have been sufficiently soft to admit of the Mammoth sinking in; while shortly after death the temperature must have been lowered, so as to arrest decomposition, up to the very day on which the body arose under the eyes of M. Benkendorf, in the exceptionally warm year of 1846, when the tundra was thawed to a most unusual depth, and converted into a morass permeable by water. Had any Mammoths been alive in that year, and had they strayed beyond the limits of the woods into the tundra, some would in all human probability have been engulfed; and, when once covered up, the normal cold of winter would suffice to prevent the thaw of the carcases, except in extraordinary seasons, such as that in which this one was discovered. Probably many such warm summers intervened since its death, but as it was preserved from the air, they would not accelerate putrefaction to any great degree. In this way the problem of its entombment and preservation may be solved by an appeal to the present climatal conditions of Siberia. The difficulty of accounting for such vast quantities of remains in the Arctic Ocean, especially in the Läckhow Islands off the mouth of the Lena, is also explained by this discovery, as well as the association of marine shells with the remains of the Mammoth. The body was swept away by the swollen flood of the Indighirka, along with many other waifs and strays, and no doubt by this time is adding to the vast accumulation in the Arctic Sea. It was seen by a mere chance, and must be viewed as an example of the method by which animal remains are swept seaward. In all probability, the frozen morass in which it was discovered is as full of Mammoths as the peat-bogs of Ireland are of Irish Elk, and have been the main source from which the Arctic rivers have obtained their supply of animal remains. The remains of the Mammoth are met with in incredible numbers in the river deposits of Middle and Northern Europe, as well as in those of North America, showing that in ancient times the animal ranged over a tract of land extending from the Mediterranean to the Arctic Sea, and from Behring Strait to the Gulf of Mexico. It is also met with in the caves in Middle Europe, having been dragged into them by the Hyænas, or having fallen a prey to the ancient hunter. We owe, indeed, to the skill of the latter an incisive sketch of the animal as he appeared to the inhabitants of Auvergne, in the remote geological period known as Pleistocene; the long, hairy mane, and spirally-curved tusks, are faithfully depicted by the artist, and, were it not for the strange chance which has preserved to us the whole animal in the frozen ice-cliffs of Siberia, would have seemed to us merely imaginative details. In another example, also from the caves of Auvergne, the Mammoth is represented with his mouth open, and his trunk lifted up in the attitude of charging.
MAMMOTH (Restored).
Remains of other extinct species of Elephants are found; one, which is of exceedingly small stature, standing not much higher than from two and a half to three feet, has been discovered in the bone-caves of Malta. The genus MASTODON, which in many respects resembles the true Elephants, differs from them in the formation of the teeth, the grinders being much simpler, more tubercular, and with crowns free from cement. In most cases, also, there were two small tusks in the lower jaw, as well as those in the upper. In Europe they appear in the Miocene and Pliocene strata, and in America they survived into the Pleistocene. The most extraordinary-looking, perhaps, of the fossil Proboscidea, and that furthest removed from the living Elephants, is the DINOTHERIUM, of the Miocene age. It possessed no tusks in the upper jaw, but its lower jaw was armed with two long curved tusks, projecting downwards. It probably possessed the habits of the Elephant, and these tusks may have been used for uprooting trees, or hooking down boughs, so as to obtain the leaves and shoots for food.
W. BOYD DAWKINS.
H. W. OAKLEY.