Habitation and Desfructioti of the Mammoths. 347 



above it. In proportion, however, as we advance into the 

 plains of Siberia, or descend into the valley of the Tobol and 

 the Obe, or their affluents, these bones increase in quantity, 

 and are at the same time in much better conservation. Even 

 in the flat country of Siberia, about thirty versts eastward of 

 our excursion on the Issetz (see p. 366), Pallas mentions the 

 occurrence of teeth, vertebrae, and bones of mammoth, and 

 remains of fossil ox, as having been found abundantly by the 

 peasants at several localities near Tamakulsk, and the source 

 and banks of the little streams Atish Suvarish, both tribu- 

 taries of the Issetz. He also gives (from the informa- 

 tion he received) a detailed account of the order in which 

 various beds of sand and clay there succeed to each other, 

 and in which sharks' teeth and palates of fishes also occur. 

 Hence he concludes that the beds in which the bones were 

 found formed the bottom of an argillaceous sea ; and that 

 certain sandy, micaceous materials, in superior beds, were 

 washed down from the mountains. Now, we cannot for a 

 moment suppose that the great naturalist could have been 

 mistaken in the marine character of the fish remains ; but, 

 as he did not visit the spot himself,* there may still be some 

 doubt that the mammoths' bones occur in the very same beds 

 with the fossil wood, sharks' teeth, &c. ; for these, we appre- 

 hend, must certainly belong to the tertiary deposits of clay, 

 sand, lignite, and millstone grit, of which we took leave at 

 Kaltchedansk, and which appear to extend widely into Siberia. 

 That deposit is, we must think, of higher antiquity than the 

 detrital accumulations which enclose the mammotlis. How- 

 ever this may be, the further the Siberian rivers are followed 

 towards their mouths, the more, we repeat, do the mammalian 

 remains increase,t until at length whole skeletons have been 

 found entire, some with all the flesh and hair adherent. Un- 



* Pallas derived his information respecting the order of the beds and 

 the position of the remains at and near Tamakulsk, from Colonel Bibikoff, 

 director of the Forge Kamensk. (See Vol. II., p. 392, French Edition, 

 1793.) 



t Sujeflf, the associate of Pallas, found these mammalian remains ia 

 great abundance on the banks of the Obe, near the mouth of the Pitti- 

 arski, and 150 versts south of Berezof. (Pallas, vol. iv., p. 50.) 



