The Earth's Shifting Crust by Charles Hapgood - wire of information

THE GREAT EXTINCTIONS 229
2. The Mammoth's Adaptation to Cold
It has long been taken for granted, without really careful
consideration, that the mammoth was an Arctic animal. The
opinion has been based on the mammoth's thick skin, on
its hairy coat, and on the deposit of fat usually found under
the skin. Yet it can be shown that none of these features
mean any special adaptation to cold.
To begin with the skin and the hair, we have a clear
presentation of the facts by the French zoologist and derma-
tologist H. Neuville. His report was published as long ago
as 1919 (325). He performed a comparative microscopic study
of sections of the skin of a mammoth and that of an Indian
elephant, and showed that they were identical in thickness
and in structure. They were not merely similar: they were
exactly the same. Then, he showed that the lack of oil glands
in the skin of the mammoth made the hair less resistant to
cold and damp than the hair of the average mammal. In
other words, the hair and fur showed a negative adaptation
to cold. It turns out that the common, ordinary sheep is
better adapted to Arctic conditions:
We have . . . two animals very nearly related zoologically, the
mammoth and the elephant, one of which lived in severe climates
while the other is now confined to certain parts of the torrid zone.
The mammoth, it is said, was protected from the cold by its fur
and by the thickness of its dermis. But the dermis, as I have said, and
as the illustrations prove, is identical in the two instances; if
would therefore be hard to attribute a specially adaptive function
to the skin of the mammoth. The fur, much more dense, it is true,
on the mammoths than on any of the living elephants, nevertheless
is present only in a very special condition which is fundamentally
identical in all of these animals. Let us examine the consequences
of this special condition, consisting, I may repeat, in the absence of
cutaneous glands. The physiological function of these glands is very
important. [Neuville's footnote here: It is merely necessary to mention
that according to the opinion now accepted, that of Unna,
the effect of the sebum is to lubricate the fur, thus protecting it
against disintegration, and that of the sweat is to soak the epidermis