Some Reminiscences of old Victoria Part 9

"A very interesting account of the discovery by Dr. von Adelung, curator of the museum of the Imperial Academy of Sciences at St.

Petersburg, has just appeared in the _Globus_, a leading German scientific paper, of Brunswick.

"From this account it appears that the mammoth was first reported by a Cossack named Jawlowsky. He found it in a glacier near the Beresowka River, a tributary of the Kolyma River, in far Northeastern Siberia. The nearest settlement is Sredne Kolymsk, three hundred versts (a verst is 3,500 yards) away.

"The situation of the body is a very extraordinary one.

It lies in an enormous pocket of ice, between the mountains, near the river bank. The ice is evidently the relic of the great glacier that existed here in former ages. The upper ice in time flowed away, leaving only the lower part shut up in this pocket. The River Beresowka only thaws for a short time in summer. The surface of the earth in this region also thaws only at this season, and then only to a depth of two or three feet. Beneath that the soil is eternally frozen.

"A slight melting of the surface of the ice left a bright, smooth s.p.a.ce, peering through which the Cossack Jawlowsky saw the ancient mammoth preserved, as we sometimes see a lobster in a cake of ice.

The Cossack knew how interesting such relics were to civilized men and promptly reported this one.

"Through the agency of Mr. Horn, the Chief of Police of Kolymsk, the Cossack's report was conveyed to the Governor of Yakutsk. He being interested in scientific matters, promptly communicated the report to the Imperial Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg.

"The greatest scientific undertaking of this kind ever made was then determined upon. This was nothing less than an expedition to bring back the complete body of the mammoth. It was promptly organized by the Imperial Academy, with the fullest a.s.sistance of the government and the Ministry of Finance. Dr. Otto Herz, curator of the Imperial Museum, was appointed leader of the expedition, with Dr. Pfitzenmayer as a.s.sistant.

"The expedition proceeded along the Trans-Siberian railroad as far as Irkutsk. From there to the place of the discovery is a journey by land and water of fully 3,000 miles. The scientists made part of this journey in boats down the Lena River to Jakutsk. They then started on an overland journey to Sredne Kolymsk. They took fifty horses for transport. A large part of the way lay through virgin forest. Then came the formation called the Taiga, a sort of Arctic moorland, which becomes swampy and dangerous in summer.

"The scientists had to live on salt fish, mare's milk and stewed tree bark. Several lives were lost on the journey, but it is now known that the chief scientists reached their destination. They proceeded without delay to excavate the mammoth.

"The flesh is treated with a.r.s.enic and then sewn up in new cowhide, which shrinks, becomes air-tight and preserves the contents.

"Nothing more will probably be heard from the scientists during the present winter. Dr. Herz, according to the last report, was in doubt as to which of two ways he will take in returning. He may, during the coming summer, endeavor to take the mammoth's remains overland to Markova, a little settlement on the Anadyr River, which runs into Behring Sea. There he would winter and go down the river at the opening of next summer, and catch the steams.h.i.+p that calls there once a year.

"If this proves impracticable, he will have to wait until the winter of 1902-1903, and take the remains overland by sledges to Irkutsk. It would be impossible to make this tremendous journey in summer, through a roadless country, where there are thousands of square miles of swamps.

"Numerous relics of mammoths have been discovered in Siberia, including pieces of skin, and all the bones. On more than one occasion a complete animal has been found preserved in the ice, but a complete animal has never been secured in its entirety and brought back to civilization. That is exactly what the Imperial Academy of Sciences now proposes to do. According to the last report from Irkutsk, it is in a fair way to accomplish this.

"It is, perhaps, one of the most marvellous facts in the whole realm of nature that the body of a mammoth should be preserved exactly as it existed in life thousands and thousands of years ago, but there is every reason to believe that this happened in countless cases.

"The mammoth was a gigantic species of extinct elephant. It flourished in past geological ages, and also survived into the days of early man. When the Palaeolithic or Old Stone man flourished on earth two hundred thousand years ago, the mammoth was as common as the horse to-day. In no part of the world were mammoths more abundant than in Northern Siberia. They must have roamed about there as freely as the buffalo did in North America fifty years ago.

"Though similar in structure to the modern elephant, the mammoth was very different in habits. He was a northern animal, and with this in view was provided with a very long, thick hair, reddish in color, like that of the camel. He had extraordinary teeth and stomach, so that he was able to masticate and digest, not only plants, leaves and so forth, but wood and the trunks of trees. His stomach has been found full of young fir trees. His teeth were built in layers and renewed themselves ceaselessly through life.

"Sometimes the mammoth would become mired in a soft spot of earth, and there sink in, die, become frozen and preserved forever. Another mammoth, while walking across a glacier, would fall into a creva.s.se, and there become frozen in a gigantic block of ice. That is what happened in the case of the animal recently discovered in Siberia. The soil is generally frozen to a depth of four hundred feet in Northern Siberia.

"There were many species of mammoths, some of them existing in earlier ages than others. One species was provided with four tusks, the upper ones turning up as in the present elephant, and the lower turning down, as in the walrus. These horns were of gigantic size, in some cases measuring twelve feet long. They were adapted princ.i.p.ally to digging up and pulling down trees. The mastodon was a giant elephant of a still earlier period than the mammoth.

"In spite of their gigantic size and weapons, the mammoths were frequently killed by prehistoric men. These men must have been very brave and determined to kill these huge and terribly armed beasts, with stone and rude wood and bone spears.

"The very word 'mammoth' is of Siberian Tartar origin, being derived from the word 'mammoth,' the earth, on account of the beast being found frozen in the earth. Chinese records show that they, too, frequently discovered the frozen mammoths. The beast is probably the same as the 'Behemoth' of the Bible.

"The bones of the mammoth when first discovered in Europe were variously regarded as the remains of giant men and of elephants that had been brought to Europe by the ancient Romans. Even the majority of scientists held to this opinion until Sir Richard Owen, the great palaeontologist, first proved that they were the remains of an extinct animal allied to, but of different species from, the elephant.

"One of the first mammoths described by modern scientists was found on the peninsula of Tamut, near the Lena River, in 1799. It was fully enclosed in a ma.s.s of clear ice. It was uncovered and rotted away in 1804."

Mr. Norman's Letter.

The following is a copy of Mr. Norman's letter:

"British Emba.s.sy, St. Petersburg,

"Dec. 24, 1904.

"Dear Sir,--Before leaving St. Petersburg, Mrs. Gough-Calthorpe, wife of our late naval attache, asked me to send you some information about the stuffed mammoth which is in the Zoological Museum here, as you were interested in such things, and I promised to translate the pa.s.sage in the catalogue which refers to the animal.

"The revolution which has been raging here for the last few months has given me so much to do I really have not had time to keep my promise sooner. However, I now send you the translation, which, I fear, tells disappointingly little about the mammoth, giving no measurements nor any description of his appearance. The earlier part, too, about the distribution of the elephant family, is doubtless also stale news to you.

"You have, I believe, already received a photograph of him from Mrs.

Calthorpe, so you know what he looks like, but as I have seen him very often, I may add a few details as to his personal appearance from my own observation. He is smaller than I expected--a good deal smaller than an elephant, but then, it is true, he was young when he died, not full grown, I suppose. His tusks are magnificent. His hair is very thick, abundant and long and of a fas.h.i.+onable dark reddish-brown tint. Otherwise he is very like an elephant in general build, and I should say, so far as I can judge without being a specialist, in details also.

"I hope these few details may be of use to you. Should you want more about the mammoth, or require information about anything else in the museum here, I shall be very glad to do my best to satisfy you.

"The Calthorpes are much regretted by all of us here, as they were greatly beloved by us. Curiously enough, the wife of Calthorpe's successor, Captain Victor Stanley, also comes from British Columbia.

"Yours very truly,

"H. Norman.

"Secretary to His Majesty's Emba.s.sy.

"I send this by King's messenger as far as London, which will still further delay it, but the posts are now very irregular and unsafe in Russia owing to the revolutionary strikes. H. N."

Translation from Catalogue.

"During the tertiary period elephants were very numerous and were distributed over Europe, Asia as far as the Arctic Ocean, North America and Africa. By the remains excavated, many species of extinct elephants are now distinguished, among which one, known under the name of Mammoth (_Elephas Primigenius_), existed in immense numbers in Europe and in Siberia as far as its most northern limits.

In Siberia the frozen bodies of these animals have frequently been found well preserved, with the skin and flesh. On account of the remoteness of the places where these bodies have been found, not all the expeditions sent to exhume them have had a successful issue.

In this connection the most successful of all was that organized by the Academy of Sciences in 1901 to the River Berezovka, in the Yakutsk district, which consisted of Messrs. O. F. Herz and E. W. Pfitzenmayer.

Thanks to this expedition an excellent specimen of the mammoth was received by the Academy of Sciences,--rather young, with skin, parts of the internal organs, some food and almost the whole skeleton.

Unfortunately some of the soft parts of the body, such as the trunk, were not found. The remains of this mammoth made it possible not only to set up the skeleton, but to stuff the animal, which is placed in the position in which it died, suddenly, in all probability, and in which it was found in a frozen condition."

This story can hardly be called a "reminiscence" of Victoria, but I thought that it might be interesting to many who, like myself, have a liking for old and ancient things, as this mammoth most a.s.suredly was. Also there may be an interest taken in the letter from Mr.

Norman, the secretary to H.M. Emba.s.sy, speaking as it does of one who formerly was a resident and native-born of British Columbia.--E. F.

CHAPTER XI.

MRS. EDWIN DONALD, HON. WYMOND HAMLEY, HON. G. A. WALKEM.

Mrs. Edwin Donald.

"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith."--Timothy 4:7, 8. Never was there one to whom these words could be applied with greater truth than to the subject of this sketch. A faithful servant of her Lord, she was always ready to say a good word for Him, and took advantage of any and all opportunities to bring back to Him some friend whom she thought had become careless, thoughtless, or indifferent in His service.

I am sure my old friend admonished me many a time during our forty-six years of close friends.h.i.+p, but always in the most kindly manner, that could not help impressing me, knowing it was well meant, and knowing also that she considered it her duty to say what she did.

It was in February, 1859, as a boy of twelve, just arrived from San Francisco, that I first met her. She and her husband had lately arrived from Wisconsin, U.S., where they had been living some years, and, having a sister here already, she had been induced to come to her. Her sister, herself and their husbands had all come from Cornwall. The elder sister and her husband (Trounce) had emigrated to Van Diemen's Land, as Tasmania was then called; the Trounces later on went to San Francisco, and from there came to Victoria, in the same steamer as my father, in 1858.

The Trounces and Donalds lived in tents on Douglas Street in 1858, and when our family arrived in 1859 they had just moved into what was then considered a very handsome house. It now stands on Kane Street, between Douglas and Blanchard.