HOW THE GIANT OF THE PHILADELPHIA ZOOLOGICAL GARDEN IS CHAINED BY THREE OF HIS LEGS TO THE WALLS OF HIS CAGE. HE IS FORTY TEARS OLD AND THE LARGEST ELEPHANT EVER SEEN IN THIS COUNTRY.
(San Francisco Call, Volume 87, Number 48, 18 July 1901, page 6)
ELEPHANT BOLIVAR CHAINED IN SAME SPOT FOR THIRTEEN YEARS
BOLIVAR, the pride of the Philadelphia Zoological Garden, and probably the largest elephant in captivity, has been chained, standing In one place, for nearly thirteen years, says the Philadelphia Times. Day and night, season in and out, his ponderous bulk has kept up its ceaseless swing and rock from side to side in this one corner within an area circumscribed by the detaining power of three chains. Circuses come and go and elephants galore stop within the sound of his trumpeting blasts, but he never seems to care: only keeps his corner, apparently well contented. Each year Bolivar seeks to create a sensation. Never of an amiable temper, the first of the summer months usually finds him contracting ugly moods. Then he wants to fight. His food does not suit, noise irritates him and incidents generally viewed complacently throw him into a towering rage. There is trouble brewing if keeper George Harrison does not look out. It Is impotent rage, though, for it only brings to his elephants hip another chain, which is attached to the free leg. Then all are drawn fairly tight, and Bolivar is left to sulk and grumble and sway harder than ever until his saccharine qualities show again. It is about time now for his annual tantrums.
"Does it not injure him to stand so long in one place?" was asked of Superintendent Brown. He says it does not, and he has, with the air of anatomical charts, proved to various inquiring agents of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, that Bolivar is not cruelly treated. In most animals the bones of the leg do not set directly above one another, but are placed at such angles that a constant strain on the muscles is necessary in standing. With the elephant the formation is different. The bones are set squarely together, with broad, bearing joints and directly vertical to each other. Thus a solid column or four solid columns support the body, and the muscles are hardly necessary at all In standing.
For exercise the swaying and short stepping allowed by the chains must suffice. As Bolivar is always in motion there can be no fear of his blood becoming sluggish through inaction. There is no yard for him. though his campanion is allowed one, for his strength and weight and wicked tendencies would become assertive, and there is a moral responsibility In keeping him incapable of harm. It might make a good story if he got on the rampage, but the zoo would need repopulatlon.
Adam Forepaugh gave Bolivar to the zoo as a Christmas present in 1888. He enjoined them to handle him carefully. "That's the finest beast I ever owned, and he won't do any harm if he don't get away. But, mind you, that you keep him fast," said Forepaugh, who had obtained him at the age of 10. He is now 40, and there seems no reason why he should not live 100 years longer. A native of Ceylon, he is both the largest and most perfect type of Indian elephant ever seen in this country. In fact, his great size was the chief reason that Forepaugh let him go. It had become extremely dangerous to carry him about on trainboard. His back persisted in pushing up until the top of his car could not clear the overhead structures along the railroad, and once this caused a wreck up n Central New York. He was too big a proposition for "Ady."
Jumbo, a Barnum pet of the African persuasion, has been exploited as the "biggest ever." But, in animal parlance, he had "more daylight under him." This extreme length of leg and an unprepossessing hump on Jumbo's back pushed his height to a sensational point, though he weighed a ton and a half less than Bolivar does. At the time of the latter's acquisition he weighed 8700 pounds. Now it has Increased to 12,000. He Is ten feet high, or four inches better than twelve years ago, and two inches higher than any Indian elephant ever seen by Savealson, the. great traveler and elephant authority. In the dietary way he is a wonder. Hay and potatoes disappear as if by magic. Of the former he eats 150 pounds each day.
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