of the tusks) of seventeen feet and a height of eleven feet, the tusks being twelve feet in length.  Remains of Elephants are also abundant in the Post-Pliocene deposits of both the Old and the New World.  Amongst these, we find in Europe the two familiar Pliocene species E.  Meridionales and E.  Antiquus still surviving, but in diminished numbers.  With these are found in vast abundance the remains of the characteristic Elephant of the Post-Pliocene, the well-known “Mammoth” (Elephas primigenius_), which is accompanied in North America by the nearly-allied, but more southern species, the Elephas Americanus.  The Mammoth (fig. 266) is considerably larger than the largest of the living Elephants, the skeleton being over sixteen feet in length, exclusive of the tusks, and over nine feet in height.  The tusks are bent almost into a circle, and are sometimes twelve feet in length, measured along their curvature.  In the frozen soil of Siberia several carcasses of the Mammoth have been discovered with the flesh and skin still attached to the bones, the most celebrated of these being a Mammoth which was discovered at the beginning of this century at the mouth of the Lena, on the borders of the Frozen Sea, and the skeleton of which is now preserved at St Petersburg (fig. 266).  From the occurrence of the remains of the Mammoth in vast numbers in Siberia, it might have been safely inferred that this ancient Elephant was able to endure a far more rigorous climate than its existing congeners.  This inference has, however, been rendered a certainty by the specimens just referred to, which show that the Mammoth was protected against the cold by a thick coat of reddish-brown wool, some nine or ten inches long, interspersed with strong, coarse black hair more than a foot in length.  The teeth of the Mammoth (fig.267) are of the type of those of the existing Indian Elephant, and are found in immense numbers in certain localities.  The Mammoth was essentially northern in its distribution, never passing south of a line drawn through the Pyrenees, the Alps, the northern shores of the Caspian, Lake Baikal, Kamschatka, and the Stanovi Mountains (Dawkins).  It occurs in the Pre-Glacial forest-bed of Cromer in Norfolk, survived the Glacial period, and is found abundantly in Post-Glacial deposits in France, Germany, Britain, Russia in Europe, Asia, and North America, being often associated with the Reindeer, Lemming, and Musk-ox.  That it survived into the earlier portion of the human period is unquestionable, its remains having been found in a great number of instances associated with implements of human manufacture; whilst in one instance a recognisable portrait of it has been discovered, carved on bone.

[Illustration:  Fig. 267.—­Molar tooth of the Mammoth (Elephas primigenius), upper jaw, right side, one-third of the natural size. a, Grinding surface; b, Side view.  Post-Pliocene.]

Amongst other Elephants which occur in Post-Pliocene deposits may be mentioned, as of special interest, the pigmy Elephants of Malta.  One of these—­the Elephas Melitensis, or so-called “Donkey-Elephant”—­was not more than four and a half feet in height.  The other—­the Elephas Falconeri, of Busk—­was still smaller, its average height at the withers not exceeding two and a half to three feet.