signifies the earth; others derive the name from the Arabic word Behemoth, employed in the book of Job for some large or unknown animal, or from Mehemoth, an Arab term applied to elephants when of extraordinary size. By the name of mammoth-horns the Siberians designate the fossil tusks which are so numerous and in such excellent preservation throughout the northern districts, that they are employed for exactly the same purposes as recent ivory, and form an important branch of commerce, which the czars have endeavoured exclusively to monopolize.
The fable of a subterranean animal is known to the Chinese, who call the tusks of the mammoth the teeth of tien-schu, under which word we find in the great work on Natural History, the following account. "The animal called tien-schu, tyn-schu, or yn-schu (signifying the mouse which conceals itself), lives entirely in subterranean caverns; in form it resembles a mouse, but is equal to an ox or a buffalo in size. It has no tail, and is of a dark colour; it is exceedingly strong, and digs caverns in which it lives, in rocky and woody places." Another author writes thus:—"The tyn-schu only frequents dark and lonely places: it dies instantly on seeing the rays of the sun or moon: its legs are short in proportion to its body, so that it walks badly: its tail is the length of a Chinese ell: its eyes are small and its neck bent: it is a stupid and slothful animal. On the occasion of the inundation caused by the river Tan-schuann-tuy, in 1571, many tynschu were seen in the plain: they fed on the roots of the plant called fu-kia." Again:—"The animal call fin-schu is only found in the cold regions on the banks of the river Tai-tunn-giann, and thence northward as far as the northern ocean. It is like a mouse, but as large as an elephant: it is afraid of the light, and resides wholly underground in dark grottoes: its bones are white, like ivory, and easily worked, and are without cracks: its flesh is cold, and very wholesome."[1]
It is doubtless owing to the great profit arising from the sale of the tusks of mammoths that the Russians and Siberians have been induced to search for them so diligently, and thus found such vast numbers of bones throughout that extensive country: to this it may be added, that the immense rivers which flow into the Frozen Ocean become prodigiously swollen annually, when the thaw commences, break up
- ↑ These details are extracted from a note communicated to the Academy of St. Petersburgh by M. Klaproth, and were printed by Tilesius in the Memoires of that Academy, torn. v. p. 409.
