bone

[Tim Keenan & Rebecca Counts]

List-

Nelson and Tracy Denton wrote:
> 

> You can add Mastadon to the list as tusks were found in abundance in Russia
>  and Alaska at the turn of the century.

There was a real spate of fossil mastodon and mammoth ivory at the turn 
of the century because of the gold rush in Yukon and Alaska. There is 
still lots of placer mining going on in both places, and tusks and bones 
are continually coming out of the muck.  This stuff is also not illegal 
to traffic in, but would take a lot of bleaching to make a keyboard that 
most people would accept.  It is generally quite yellowed, with dark 
veins and mottling and hairline cracks.  Kind of what you would 
expect of stuff that had been buried in gravel for a few million 
years.  There is something of a minor industry in making touristy kinds 
of ornaments, scrimshaw, etc. which you can buy in Skagway or Dawson 
City for too much money.

Tim Keenan
Terrace, BC