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for numbers of them being decayed or cracked are left behind
as valueless. It is only for a short time in the first part
of the summer, when the spring floods have washed out
the frozen earth in which the remains of this animal are
buried, that the mammoth tusks can be gathered. Then
the natives roam about far and wide searching the
river-valleys and ravines where the floods have left fresh surfaces
exposed, and gather in their crop. In consequence of the
perennially frozen condition of the soil the floods wash out
the earth more in a horizontal than a perpendicular
direction, and from this cause these annual wash-outs often extend
over a large area. The mammoth crop, then, may in a
certain sense be said to depend on the amount of rain and
the weather in general during the spring. On the New
Siberian Islands, on the other hand, it is the ice and the
sea which make the tusks accessible to the collectors, by
undermining and eroding the beach or cliffs; while
sometimes, especially after heavy weather, they are thrown up
on shore by the waves. The natives in the service of the
merchants usually start over the frozen sea with their
dogs and sledges for the islands in March, staying there
all the summer and returning with their sledges loaded
with ivory in the autumn, when the sea is again frozen.
The mammoth crop on the islands is very greatly dependent
on the winds. If, for example, protracted westerly weather
prevails, the water rises very high, while during easterly
storms it sinks, making a larger surface of cliff and beach
accessible to the collector.
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