348 Sir R. I. Murchison on the 



willing, as we always were, to adopt the idea of Cuvier, and 

 other eminent geologists, that entire mammoths, with their 

 skin, were killed and preserved by a sudden change of climate, 

 we now distinctly advocate the views of Lyell and Humboldt, 

 that these creatures were the denizens of countries near to 

 which their bones are found.* 



The single fact of the very wide diffusion of mammoth 

 bones over the surface of such enormous regions of the earth, 

 would in itself lead us to believe, that those creatures had 

 really been long inhabitants of such countries, living and 

 dying there for ages, whilst their final destruction may have 

 resulted from aqueous debacles dependent on oscillations of 

 the land, the elevation of ridges, and the formation of much 

 local detritus. In the case of the extinct species of carni- 

 vora, it has been happily and successfully shewn by Dr Buck- 

 land, that for long ages they inhabited the caves of the British 

 Islands. Again, in low tracts of Yorkshire, where tranquil 

 lacustrine deposits have occurred, there bones (even those of 

 the lion) have been found so perfectly unbroken and unworn 

 in the fine gravel in which they are heaped up (as at Market 

 Weighton),"!" that few persons would be disposed to deny. 



* For some time, the frozen mammoth found by Adams, and deposited 

 in the Imperial Museum at St Petersburg, was an unique specimen. 

 Since then, two other examples have been reported, and one of these is, 

 we are informed by Mr Frears, on the point of arriving at the Museum 

 of Moscow. The conservation of the skin is, indeed, not peculiar to the 

 mammoth, but also applies to the Rhinoceros Tichorhinns, portions of 

 whose skin and hair are still adherent to the bones of a fine specimen of 

 that animal, preserved in the Museum of Natural History at St Peters- 

 burg, and deposited there by Pallas. On referring personally to Baron 

 Humboldt, since the publication of his work on Central Asia, he expressed 

 his opinion, that the perfect conservation of the skin, mustachios, and 

 whole body of Prince MenzikofF, buried 100 years ago in Siberia, and 

 accidentally disinterred, ought to satisfy us respecting the conservation 

 of the mammoth, by simple reference to the climate of that country. 



t The researches of the Rev. W. V. Harcourt, and of Mr H. E. Strick- 

 land, are most important in shewing (the former at Market Weighton, 

 the latter at Cropthorne on the Avon) the coexistence of the mammoth^ 

 Bos Urus, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, lion, bear, tiger, hyaena, deer, &c^ 

 (all of species distinct from those in existence), with land and fresh water 

 shells, nearly all of which are identical with species now living in Britain ; 



