48 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



frozen in a mass of ice, at a depth of sixty 

 feet, so well preserved that it was still covered 

 with hair, as in life. They melted the ice to 

 remove the animal, but the skeleton alone re- 

 mained complete ; the hide was spoiled by con- 

 tact with the air, and only a few pieces have 

 been kept, one of which is in the Museum at 

 Stuttgart. The hairs upon it are as coarse as 

 fine twine, and nearly a foot long 1 . The entire 

 skeleton is at St. Petersburg in the Museum, 

 and is larger than the largest elephant. One 

 may judge by that what havoc such an ani- 

 mal must have made, if it was, as its teeth 

 show it to have been, carnivorous. But what 

 I would like to know is how this animal could 

 wander so far north, and then in what man- 

 ner it died, to be frozen thus, and remain in- 

 tact, without decomposing, perhaps for count- 

 less ages. For it must have belonged to a 

 former creation, since it is nowhere to be 

 found living, and we have no instance of the 

 disappearance of any kind of animal within 

 the historic period. There were, besides, 

 many other kinds of fossil animals. The col- 

 lection of birds is very beautiful, but it is a 

 pity that many of them are wrongly named. 

 I corrected a number myself. . . . From 

 Stuttgart we went to Esslingen, where we 



