ed a good husband, a good father, and a good son, for he made
the heart of old Sakalar glad. He never regretted his journey: he
always declared he owed to it wealth and happiness, a high position in
society, and an admirable wife. Great rejoicings took place many years
after in Yakoutsk, at the marriage of the son of Maria, united to
the daughter of Ivan, and from the first unto the last, none of the
parties concerned ever had reason to mourn over the perilous journey
in search of the Ivory Mine.

* * * * *

For the information of the non-scientific, it may be necessary to
mention that the ivory alluded to in the preceding tale, is derived
from the tusks of the mammoth, or fossil elephant of the geologist.
The remains of this gigantic quadruped are found all over the northern
hemisphere, from the 40th to the 75th degree of latitude: but most
abundantly in the region which lies between the mountains of Central
Asia and the shores and islands of the Frozen Sea. So profusely do
they exist in this region, that the tusks have for more than a century
constituted an important article of traffic--furnishing a large
proportion of the ivory required by the carver and turner. The remains
lie imbedded in the upper tertiary clays and gravels; and these, by
exposure to the river-currents, to the waves of the sea, and other
erosive agencies, are frequently swept away during the thaws of
summer, leaving tusks and bones in masses, and occasionally even
entire skeletons, in a wonderful state of preservation. The most
perfect specimen yet obtained, and from the study of which the
zoologist has been enabled to arrive at an accurate knowledge of the
structure and habits of the mammoth, is that discovered by a Tungusian
fisherman, near the mouth of the river Lena, in the summer of 1799.

Being in the habit of collecting tusks among the debris of the
gravel-cliffs, (for it is generally at a considerable elevation in the
cliffs and river banks that the remains occur,) he observed a strange
shapeless mass projecting from an ice-bank some fifty or sixty feet
above the river; during next summer's thaw he saw the same object,
rather more disengaged from amongst the ice; in 1801 he could
distinctly perceive the tusk and flank of an immense animal; and in
1803, in consequence of an earlier and more powerful thaw, the huge
carcase became entirely disengaged, and fell on the sandbank beneath.
In the spring of the foll