MAMMOTH, an elephant (Elephas primi genius) which inhabited the temperate parts of the northern world the Glacial period, and at its close spread northward with the re treat of the ice, and survived until the Neolithic period of human history. Some account of the origin and probable wanderings of the species is given in the paragraph relating to fossil ele phants under ELEPHANT. Mammoth remains have been found in intimate association with the handiwork of savage man; and upon a piece of bone a portrait of this animal was found scratched, the accuracy of which shows a close acquaintance by the Cave-dwellers of France with the animal in life, and much artistic elephant, although the word "mammoth" has become an expression for hugeness, was little if any larger, on the average, than the modern Asiatic elephant, to which it was nearly related. Its remains are abundant and enable us to reconstruct its form and features com pletely, especially since the remarkable discov ery, first in 1799, of carcasses frozen into the icy cliffs along the Arctic coast of Siberia. One of the most important discoveries of this kind occurred in 1801. Since the earliest known times ivory from buried tusks of these animals has been obtained from northern Siberia and Alaska, and many curious stories were invented to account for its origin, especially among the Chinese, who had never seen an elephant; but the specimens above mentioned contained not only the tusks still in their sockets and every bone in its place throughout the skeleton, but a great part of the flesh was in a condition fit for sledge-dogs to eat and enjoy, and was covered with thick skin still clothed with long dark hair, beneath which was a dense woolly fur, well fitted to protect the animal against arctic cold.
The ears were much smaller than those of modern elephants. This specimen of 1801, which is preserved in the Royal Museum at Saint Petersburg in the attitude in which it was found buried, measured 16 feet 4 inches from the fore head to the extremity of the tail; its height was 9 feet 4 inches, and the tusks, along the outer or greater curve, measured 9 feet 6 inches. Of other well-known specimens, that skeleton mounted in Chicago is one of the lar gest known, and its tusks measure 9 feet 8 inches. The largest tusks on record are a pair found in Alaska which measure 124 feet in length. All mammoth tusks show an out ward and upward sweep very distinct from the growth of elephant tusks. The mammoth seems to have been extremely numerous all over northern Europe, Asia and North America, especially during post-glacial times, when north ern Asia was covered with pine forests to the borders of the Arctic Sea, affording plentiful food in their leaves and twigs upon which these animals browsed. The disappearance of these forests, due to slow climatic changes, is sup posed to be the principal influence which led to the extermination of the species, a fact other wise not easily to be explained. It is probable that human hunting had much to do with the mammoth's final disappearance. (See also ELE PHANTS ; FossiL). Consult Beddard, F. E., (New York 1902) ; Lucas, F. A., 'Animals of the Past' (ib. 1901) ; Scott, W. B., 'History of Land Mammals in the Western Hemisphere' (ib. 1913) ; Herz, O. F., 'Frozen Mammoth of Siberia' (Washington See MASTODON.