A Journey to the Earth's Interior by Marshall B. Gardner

Author:Marshall B. Gardner [Gardner, Marshall B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781465577740
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
Published: 2013-07-25T16:00:00+00:00

THE MAMMOTH BANQUETS

We have referred to the eating of mammoth flesh by scientists and their guests at a banquet, and this evidence of the freshness of the meat of the animal is so remarkable that our readers may well wish to know all the details. As a matter of fact the eating of mammoth flesh by human beings has occurred more than once according to recent reports in newspapers, and, of course, there may be hundreds of cases among the Eskimos or inhabitants of Siberia where some of the carcasses have been found in a fresh condition.

The most talked about mammoth banquet was that given by Professor Herz, of the Imperial Academy of Science of St. Petersburg--as it was then--who had been leader of the expedition into Siberia which unearthed and transported the mammoth in question to the Imperial Museum. Only the bones and the skin were needed for mounting in the museum, and as the professor had kept the whole carcass in cold storage it suddenly occurred to him that it would be quite possible to eat the flesh. Of course he was under the impression that this flesh was over 20,000 years old, an idea which we have already shown to be quite wrong, and he asked scientists in other parts of the world to contribute other ancient foods--such as corn dug up from the ruins of Egyptian cities. As the mammoth flesh was not old at all we need not speak of the other and older items of this feast. What does concern us is what the guests thought of the meat. But the account of the banquet says that the banquet was a triumph: "particularly the course of mammoth steak, which all the learned guests declared was agreeable to the taste, and not much tougher than some of the sirloin furnished by butchers of today."

Another mammoth meal was eaten by an American traveler and author, Mr. James Oliver Curwood, who was exploring in the far north when his Eskimo fellow travelers found the body of a mammoth exposed by the falling of a cliff-side. Before quoting Mr. Curwood we should like to point out how little the scientists really know about such matters by contrasting what he gives as the animal's age with what Professor Herz gave. Herz put it at 20,000 years; Curwood, quoted in The Chicago Tribune for July 7th, 1912, puts it at 50,000 to 100,000 years. As we have already shown, Herz is nearer the truth than Curwood. But at that he is about 20,000 years wrong. However, here is what Mr. Curwood has to say:

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.