Of this huge elephant we possess considerable knowledge, inasmuch as specimens have been obtained, literally packed amid the Siberian ice, and so perfectly preserved that even the delicate tissues of the eyes could be inspected. This was the case in the famous specimen found in the frozen soil of a cliff at the mouth of the Lena in 1799. The skin of this huge elephant was then seen to be clothed with a thick coating of reddish wool interspersed with black hairs. The skeleton, removed in 1806 by Mr. Adams, and preserved in St. Petersburg, measures sixteen feet four inches in length, the height is nine feet four
Fig. 3.—Skeleton of a Mammoth.
inches, and the tusks measure each nine feet six inches along their curve. The mammoth's tusks appear to have had a wider curvature (Fig. 3) than those of existing elephants; and probably, like the African species, both male and female mammoths possessed these great teeth. The measurement of mammoth tusks from recent deposits in
