352 Sir R. 1. Murchison on the 



region covered with forests, like those of the Ural, in some 

 parts, and with brushwood steppes in others, from which 

 whole herds of mammoths, as suggested by Mr Lyell, would 

 naturally migrate in the summers (even now intensely hot) 

 to the embouchures of the great streams and edges of the then 

 Arctic sea. Such might have been, we may add, the posi- 

 tion and condition of some of these creatures at the periods 

 when, as we have imagined, the highest ridges of the Ural 

 were thrown up, followed by the rupture of many lakes, and 

 the consequent inundation of large tracts of the flat country, 

 previously frequented by these great herbivorous animals. 

 During their long occupancy of these lands, myriads of 

 their carcases must, doubtless, have been washed down by 

 the rivers, and buried in local mud and alluvium — in such po- 

 sitions, in fact, as they are found along the banks of the 

 Sosva and the tributaries of the Obe, before alluded to. 

 Others, reaching the mouths of the streams, may easily 

 have been transported into the estuaries, and even, by the 

 power of such volumes of water as are poured forth into 

 the glacial ocean by the Obe, the Yenisei, and the Lena, 

 borne out far to sea, and there lodged in former mud banks, 

 which now constitute the shores of New Siberia, where 

 thousands of bones of these mammals are interred.* If 

 the power of drifting the bodies of animals to great distances 

 be assigned to any rivers (and mariners have seen floating 

 carcases in the ocean very far removed from the lands from 

 whence they came), in no part of the world is it more pro- 

 bable that such operations may have been carried on upon 

 a gigantic scale, than from the northern shores of Siberia, 

 where such enormous rivers must have continuously extend- 

 ed their influence to several degrees of latitude beyond their 

 mouths, and where the nature of the climate is singularly 

 favourable to the conservation of animal substances. 



And here let us say a word more on the ancient physical 

 geography of this region. Such as are the present north- 



* See Admiral Wrangel's Voyage for a description of the sands and 

 mud of the " Tundra" (evidently all ancient marine sediment), in which 

 the mammoth bones are found on the continent, including his companion, 

 Anjou's, account of their enoraious quantity in the isles of New Siberia. 

 (English edition, translated by Mrs Sabine.) 



