thick enamel plates the transition to the other species mentioned
above, including E. maximus, is almost imperceptible.
The bones of the skeleton generally more resemble those of the Indian elephant than of any other species, but the skull differs in the narrower summit, narrower temporal fossae, and more prolonged incisive sheaths, supporting the roots of the enormous tusks. Among the external characters by which the mammoth was distinguished from either of the existing species of elephant was the dense clothing, not only of long, coarse outer hair, but also of close under woolly hair of a reddish-brown colour, evidently in adaptation to the cold climate it inhabited. This character is represented in rude but graphic drawings of prehistoric age found in caverns in the south of France. It should be added that young Asiatic elephants often show considerable traces of the woolly coat of the mammoth. The average height does not appear to have exceeded that of either of the existing species of elephant.
The geographical range of the mammoth was very extensive. There is scarcely a county in England in which its remains have not been found in alluvial gravel or in caverns, and numbers of its teeth are dredged in the North Sea. In Scotland and Ireland its remains are less abundant, and in Scandinavia and Finland they appear to be unknown; but they have been found in vast numbers at various localities throughout the greater part of central Europe (as far south as Santander and Rome), northern Asia, and the northern part of the American continent.
|
| (From Tilesius.) |
| Fig. 1.—Skeleton of Mammoth (Elephas primigenius), with portions of the skin. |
The mammoth belongs to the post-Tertiary or Pleistocene epoch and was contemporaneous with man. There is evidence to show that it existed in Britain before, during and after the glacial period. It is in northern Siberia that its remains have been found in the greatest abundance and in exceptional preservation. For a long period there has been from that region an export of mammoth-ivory, fit for commercial purposes, to China and to Europe. In the middle of the 10th century trade was carried on at Khiva in fossil ivory. Middendorff estimated the number of tusks which have yearly come into the market during the last two centuries at at least a hundred pairs, but Nordenskiöld considers this estimate too low. Tusks are found along the whole shore-line between the mouth of the Obi and Bering Strait, and the farther north the more numerous they become, the islands of New Siberia being one of the favourite collecting localities. The remains are found not only round the mouths of the great rivers, but embedded in the frozen soil in such circumstances as to indicate that the animals lived not far from the localities in which they are found; and they are exposed either by the melting of the ice in warm summers or the washing away of the sea-cliffs or river-banks. In this way the bodies of more or less nearly perfect animals, often standing in the erect position, with the soft parts and hairy covering entire, have been brought to light.
| ||
|
Fig. 2.—Grinding surface of Upper Molar Tooth of the Mammoth (Elephas primigenius). c, cement; d, dentine; e, enamel. |
For geographical distribution and anatomical characters see Falconer’s Palaeontological Memoirs, vol. ii. (1868); B. Dawkins, “Elephas Primigenius, its Range in Space and Time,” Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., xxxv. 138 (1879); and A. Leith Adams, “Monograph of British Fossil Elephants,” part ii., Palaeontographical Society (1879). (W. H. F.; R. L.*)
MAMMOTH CAVE, a cave in Edmondson county, Kentucky, U.S.A., 37° 14′ N. lat. and 86° 12′ W. long., by rail 85 m. S.S.W. of Louisville. Steamboats run from the mouth of the Green river, near Evansville, Indiana, to the Mammoth Cave landing. The cave is usually said to have been discovered, in 1809, by a hunter named Hutchins; but the county records, as early as 1797, fixed its entrance as the landmark for a piece of real estate. Its mouth is in a forest ravine, 194 ft. above Green river and 600 ft. above the sea. This aperture is not the original mouth, the latter being a chasm a quarter of a mile north of it, and leading into what is known as Dixon’s cave. The two portions are not now connected, though persons in one can make themselves heard by those in the other.
The cavernous limestone of Kentucky covers an area of 8000 sq. m., is massive and homogeneous, and belongs to the Subcarboniferous period. It shows few traces of dynamic disturbance, but has been carved, mainly by erosion since the Miocene epoch, into many caverns, of which the Mammoth Cave is the largest.
The natural arch that admits one to Mammoth Cave has a span of 70 ft., and from a ledge above it a cascade leaps 59 ft. to the rocks below, where it disappears. A flight of stone steps leads the way down to a narrow passage, through which the air rushes with violence, outward in summer and inward in winter. The temperature of the cave is uniformly 54° F. throughout the year, and the atmosphere is both chemically and optically of singular purity. While the lower levels are moist from the large pools and rivers that have secret connexion with Green river, the upper galleries are extremely dry. These conditions led at one time to the erection of thirteen cottages at a point about 1 m. underground, for the use of invalids, especially consumptives. The experiment failed, and only two cottages now remain as curiosities.
The Main Cave, from 40 to 300 ft. wide and from 35 to 125 ft. high, has several vast rooms, e.g. the Rotunda, where are the ruins of the old saltpetre works; the Star Chamber, where the protrusion of white crystals through a coating of the black oxide of manganese creates an optical illusion of great beauty; the Chief City, where an area of 2 acres is covered by a vault 125 ft. high, and the floor is strewn with rocky fragments, among which are found numerous half-burnt torches made of canes, and other signs of prehistoric occupancy. Two skeletons were exhumed near the
