Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/472

Rh 448 M A M M A M graphic drawings of prehistoric age, found in caverns in the south of France. 1 In size different individuals varied considerably, but 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 some of its remains have not been found either in alluvial deposits of gravel or in caverns, and numbers of its teeth are from time to fime dredged up from the bottom of the sea by the fishermen who ply their trade in the German Ocean, having been washed out of the water-worn cliffs of the eastern counties of England. In Scotland and Ireland its remains are less abundant, but they have been found in vast numbers at various localities throughout the greater part of central Europe (as far south as Santander in Spain and Home), northern Asia, and the northern part of the American continent, though the exact distribution of the Mammoth in the New World is still a question of debate. It has not hitherto been met with in any part of Scan dinavia or Finland. In point of time, the Mammoth belongs exclusively to the post-Tertiary or Pleistocene epoch of geologists, and it was undoubtedly contemporaneous with man in France, and probably elsewhere. There is evidence to show that it existed in Britain before, during, and after the glacial period. As before indicated, it is in the northern part of Siberia that its remains have been found in the greatest abund ance, and in quite exceptional conditions of preservation. For a very long period there has been from that region a regular export of Mammoth ivory in a state fit for com mercial purposes, both eastward to China and westward to Europe. In the middle of the 10th century an active trade was carried on at Khiva in fossil ivory, which was fashioned into combs, vases, and other objects, as related by Abu 1 Kasim, an Arab writer of that period. Mid- dendorff reckoned that the number of tusks which have yearly come into the market during the last two centuries has been at least a hundred pairs, and Norclenskiold from personal observation considers this calculation as prob ably rather too low than too high. They are found at all suitable places along the whole line of the shore between the mouth of the Obi and Behring s Straits, and the farther north the more numerous do they become, the islands of New Siberia being now one of the most favourite collecting localities. The soil of Bear Islands and of Liachoff Islands is said to consist only of sand and ice with such quantities of Mammoth bones as almost to compose its chief substance. The remains are not only found aruund the mouths of the great rivers, as would be the case if the carcases had been washed down from more southern localities in the interior of the continent, but are imbedded in the frozen soil in such circumstances as to indicate that the animals had lived not far from the localities in which they are now found, and they are exposed either by the melting of the ice in unusually warm summers or by the washing away of the sea cliffs or river banks by storms or floods. In this way the bodies of more or less perfect animals, often standing in the erect position, with the soft parts and hairy covering entire, have frequently been brought to light. References to the principal recorded discoveries of this kind, and to the nnmerous speculations to which they have given rise, Loth among the ignorant peasants and learned academicians, will be found in Nordenskibld s Voyage of the, Vega (English translation, vol. i. 1881, p. 398 sq. ) and a series of papers in the Geological Magazine for 1880 and 1881, by H. II. lloworth. For the geo- 1 The best-known of these is the etching upon a portion of tusk found in the cave of La Madelainc in the Dordogue, figured in Christy and Lartet s Reliquiae Aquitanicae, and in many other works bearing 011 the subject of the antiquity of inaa. graphical distribution and anatomical characters, see Falconer s Palseontological Memoirs, vol. ii., 1868; Boyd Dawkins, &quot; Elcphas primigenius, its range in space and time,&quot; Quart. Jour. Gcol. Soc., xxxv. p. 138 (1879); and Leith Adams, &quot;Monograph of British Fossil Elephants,&quot; part ii., PalsBontographical Society, 1879. (W. H. F.) MAMMOTH GATE, in Edmondson county, Kentucky, United States, 37 14 N. lat. and 8G 12 W. long., by rail 85 miles south-south-west of Louisville, was discovered, in 1809, by a hunter named Hutchins, while in pursuit of a wounded bear. Its mouth is in a forest ravine, 194 feet above Green river, and 600 feet 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. Saltpetre was formerly made from the nitrous earth in which the cave abounded ; but it is now mainly turned to account as a place of exhibition. The cavernous limestone of Kentucky covers an area of 8000 square miles, is massive and homogeneous, and belongs to the Subcarboniferous period. It shows few traces of dynamic disturbance, but has been carved, since the Miocene epoch, into many caverns, of which the Mammoth Cave is the noblest specimen known. The region is undulating, Tout its valleys are mostly funnel-shaped depressions emptying through fissures into subterranean streams, which feed rivers, often of navigable size, and whose waters are never frozen over, even in severe winters. Such valleys are called sink-holes. The natural arch that admits one to Mammoth Cave has a span of 70 feet, and from a ledge above it a cascade leaps 50 feet to the rocks below, where it disappears. A winding 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 tempera ture of the cave is uniformly 54&quot; Fahr. throughout the year, and the atmosphere is both chemically and optically of singular purity. &quot;While the lower levels are moist from the large pools that have secret connexion with Green river, the upper galleries are extremely dry. These con ditions led, at one time, to the erection of thirteen cottages, at a point about 1 rnile under ground, for the use of invalids, especially consumptives. The experiment ended in failure, and only two cottages now remain. The Main Cave, from 40 to 300 feet wide, and from 35 to 125 feet high, has several vast rooms, e.(/.,the llotunda, 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 feet 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 Rotunda ; but no other bones of any description have been found. The so-called Mammoth Cave &quot; mummies &quot; (i.e., bodies kept by being inhumed in nitrous earth), with accompanying utensils, ornaments, braided sandals, and other relics, were found in Short and Salt caves near by, and removed to Mammoth Cave for exhibition. The Main Cave, which abruptly ends 4 miles from the entrance, is joined by winding passages, with spacious galleries on different levels ; and, although the diameter of the area of the whole cavern is less than 10 miles, the combined length of all accessible avenues is supposed to be about 150 miles. 2 2 The present manager, Mr F. Klett, has undertaken the difficult task of a tiiorough survey, the results of which, so far as completed, are presented in the accompanying map. The portion beyond River Hall is supplemented from an older survey by Stephen, the guide.