This mammoth had undoubtedly strayed into a morass, and been ingulfed; and soon after, or before the body had an opportunity to decay, it had frozen up, to be released again ages after by an unusual thaw. The most recent mammoth-hunt has been made by Dr. Bunge, who instituted a search along the Lena delta, finding, I believe, but one specimen, which was without its head and one fore-leg. It had been exposed for ten years to the attack of foxes, native dogs, and the natives themselves, and was well-nigh ruined. The mammoth was not confined to the Old World. Vast quantities of bones have been found in Escholtz Bay in a peaty deposit that rests on a cliff of pure blue ice, and in various parts of America. As to the causes that led to its extinction, they are equally problematical. In Kentucky, Ohio, and Central North America, there would seem to have been every thing to favor its continuance,—an abundance of food, and vast areas to range upon. The one agency that might have produced its extermination is the one now at work upon its ally in Africa, namely, man. There is little doubt that the early Americans chased the great animal, and, hunted from one part of the country to another, they finally entirely disappeared. [Illustration: PLATE IV. ASIATIC ELEPHANT. SKELETON OF ASIATIC ELEPHANT. EXTINCT ELEPHANT, OR MAMMOTH. ST. PETERSBURG MUSEUM. _Page 48._] CHAPTER V. THREE AND FOUR TUSKED ELEPHANTS. Though to-day we look to Asia and Africa for elephants, and consider the huge proboscidians as extremely un-American, they originally roamed this country in vast herds, and were as common on our plains and prairies as are many animals of the present day. The mastodon, in the estimation of many naturalists, existed up to five hundred years ago; and, judging from the apparent freshness of the remains, there is no great objection to the belief. They were undoubtedly hunted by the ancestors of the mound-builders and early tribes; and, while other agencies may have aided in their extermination, the aboriginal hunter was an all-powerful factor, the result being no more remarkable than that going on at present in the extermination of the bison. What sights the early American boys and girls must have witnessed, assuming this to have been the case! The mighty mastodons, with their huge bodies and pillar-like legs, presented a far more impressive spectacle than the largest elephant of to-day; and when a captive giant was brought in, or found mired in a bog, what shouts and cries arose from these children, perhaps, of the mound-builders! The tusks of the mastodon were marvels of beauty. Those of some species were straight, turning only at the tips: others had three tusks, two in the upper jaw, and one in the lower, the latter ordinarily of small size, though occasionally they attained large dimensions. Some individuals had four of these ivory weapons, giving them a strange and ferocious appearance.