Extinct Monsters / A Popular Account of Some of the Larger Forms of Ancient Animal Life

by H. N. Hutchinson

It is greatly to be hoped that some day our National Treasure House at South Kensington may be enriched with a complete Mammoth skeleton from British soil.

The Chinese, as might be expected, heard of the Mammoth long before Europeans did, and they have some strange stories about it. In the northern part of Siberia, so great is the abundance of Mammoth tusks, that for a very long period there has been a regular export of Mammoth ivory, both eastward to China and westward to Europe. Even in the middle of the tenth century an active trade was carried on at Khiva in fossil ivory, which was fashioned into combs, vases, and other objects, as related by an Arab writer of that time. Middendorf reckoned that the number of fossil tusks which have yearly come into the market, during the last two centuries, has been at least a hundred pairs—an estimate which Nordenskiöld considers as well within the mark. They are found all along the line of the shore between the mouth of the Obi and Behring Straits, and the further north a traveller goes, the more numerous does he find them. The soil of Bear Island and of the Liachoff Islands (New Siberia) is said to consist only of sand and ice with such quantities of Mammoth bones that it appears as if they were almost made up of bones and tusks. Every summer numbers of fishermen make for these islands to collect fossil ivory, and during the winter immense caravans return laden with Mammoth tusks. The convoys are drawn by dogs, and in this way the ivory reaches both the ancient Eastern and the newer Western markets.

It is evident from the Chinese legends that the frozen bodies of Mammoths have for ages past been either seen by, or reported to, members of the celestial empire, for it is mentioned in some of their old books as an animal that lives underground. In a great Chinese work on natural history, written in the sixteenth century, the following quaint description occurs: "The animal named tien-schu, of which we have already spoken, in the ancient work upon the ceremonial entitled Lyki before Christ] is called also fyn-schu, or yn-schu, that is to say, ‘the mouse that hides itself.’ It always lives in subterranean caverns; it resembles a mouse, but is of the size of a buffalo or ox. It has no tail; its colour is dark; it is very strong, and excavates caverns in places full of rocks and forests." Another writer says, “The fyn-schu haunts obscure and unfrequented places. It dies as soon as it is exposed to the rays of the sun or moon; its feet are short in proportion to its size, which causes it to walk badly. Its tail is a Chinese ell in length. Its eyes are small, and its neck short. It is very stupid and sluggish. When the inundations of the river Tamschuann-tuy took place [in 1571] a great many fyn-schu appeared in the plain; it fed on the roots of the plant fu-kia.”

An old Russian traveller, who, in 1692, was sent by Peter the Great as ambassador to the Emperor of China, mentions the discovery of the heads and legs of Mammoths in frozen soil. After referring to these discoveries, he says, "Concerning this animal there are very different reports. The heathens of Jakutsk, Tungus, and Ostiaks say that they continually, or at least, by reason of the very hard frosts, mostly live underground, where they go backwards and forwards; to confirm which they tell us that they have often seen the earth heaved up when one of these beasts was upon the march, and, after he passed, the place sink in, and thereby make a deep pit. They further believe that if this animal comes so near to the surface of the frozen earth as to smell the air, he immediately dies, which they say is the reason that several of them are found dead on the high banks of the river, where they unawares came out of the ground. This is the opinion of the infidels concerning these beasts, which are never seen. But the old Siberian Russians affirm that the Mammoth is very like the elephant, with this difference only, that the teeth of the former are firmer, and not so straight as those of the latter.... By all I could gather from the heathens, no person ever saw one of these beasts alive, or can give any account of its shape; so that all we heard said on this subject arises from bare conjecture only."

But making all allowance for the gross absurdities of these accounts, it is clear that they are based on descriptions—probably by the Tungusian fishermen—of carcases that have been washed out of the frozen soil by rivers in flood time. Now that we are in possession of trustworthy accounts, we can understand how these strange tales arose among an ignorant and superstitious people, such as the fishermen of these inhospitable shores.

We will now put before the reader the true accounts given by Adams[61] and Benkendorf.

[61] Abridged from Memoirs of the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg, vol. v. London, 1819.

In 1799 a Tungusian, named Schumachoff, who generally went to hunt and fish at the peninsula of Tamut after the fishing season of the Lena was over, had constructed for his wife some cabins on the banks of the lake Oncoul, and had embarked to seek along the coasts for Mammoth tusks. One day he saw among the blocks of ice a shapeless mass, but did not then discover what it was. In 1800 he perceived that this object was more disengaged from the ice, and that it had two projecting parts; and towards the end of the summer of 1801 the entire side of the animal and one of his tusks were quite free from ice. In 1803 the enormous mass fell by its own weight on a bank of sand. It was a frozen Mammoth! In 1804 Schumachoff came to his Mammoth, and having cut off the tusks, exchanged them with a merchant for goods. Two years afterwards Mr. Adams, the narrator of the story, traversed these distant and desert regions, and found the Mammoth still in the same place, but sadly mutilated. The people of the neighbourhood had cut off the flesh, and fed their dogs with it during the scarcity. Wild beasts, such as white bears, wolves, and foxes, also had fed on it, and the traces of their footsteps were seen around. The skeleton was complete all except one leg, but the flesh had almost all gone. The head was covered with a dry skin, one of the ears was seen to be covered with a tuft of hairs. All these parts suffered more or less injury in transport for a distance of 7330 miles to St. Petersburg, yet the eyes have been preserved. This Mammoth was a male, with a long mane on its neck, but both tail and proboscis had disappeared. The skin is of a dark grey colour, covered with a reddish wool and black hairs. The entire carcase was nine feet four inches high. The skin of the side on which the carcase had lain was detached by Mr. Adams, for it was well preserved, but so heavy was it that ten persons found great difficulty in transporting it to the shore. The white bears, while devouring the flesh, had trodden into the ground much of the hair belonging to the carcase, but Mr. Adams was able by digging to procure about sixty pounds' weight of hair. In a few days the work was completed, and he found himself in possession of a treasure which amply compensated him for the fatigues and dangers of the journey as well as the expense of the enterprise. When first seen, this Mammoth was embedded in clear pure ice, which forms in that coast escarpments of considerable thickness, sloping towards the sea, the top of which is covered with moss and earth. If the account of the Tungusians can be trusted, the carcase was some way below the surface of the ice when first seen. Arrived at Takutsk, Mr. Adams purchased a pair of tusks which he believed to belong to this Mammoth, but there is reason to doubt whether he did get the right tusks. They are nine feet six inches long.