364 Sir R. I. Murchisoii on the 



of these creatures as were entombed in masses of tenacious 

 clay at the mouths of these estuaries, would necessarily 

 be preserved almost intact, whilst the desiccation and ele- 

 vation of such mud banks, accompanied by an increase of 

 cold, due to the raising up of a large terrestrial surface 

 like Siberia, would thoroughly well account for the occa- 

 sional conservation of their thick hides, and much of their 

 animal matter. 



Whether, then, we argue from the evidences presented to 

 us in the Ural chain and its flanks, from the ancient geogra- 

 phy of Siberia, or from the natural history of the mammoths, 

 and their adaptation to existence in the same parallels of 

 latitude as those in and near which they are now found, we 

 can, it appears to us, arrive at no other conclusions than those 

 which we have endeavoured to sustain ; and which, in fact, 

 do not imply, even as great an oscillation of land within this 

 comparatively modern period, as would be required to ex- 

 plain the surface phenomena of most other parts of Europe 

 with which we are acquainted. In truth, the uprising of 

 Siberia " en masse" to the height of one or two hundred feet 

 above its general level, when mammoths lived, will amply 

 suffice to explain both the desiccation of its northern shores 

 into the mud of which the fossil terrestrial remains had been 

 washed, and the increased cold over that vast mass of con- 

 tinental land. 



In the mean time, we may repeat, that, whether discovered 

 in the gravelly detritus or clay on either flank of the Ural, 

 in the high banks of the great streams which respectively 

 flow into Asia and Europe, or in still greater quantities on 

 the sides of the estuaries of the great Siberian rivers upon the 

 glacial ocean ; in all cases, we find the mammoths entombed 

 in materials, which, whether coarse lucustrine shingle near 

 the mountains, or mud and sand at a distance from them, all 

 announce, in the most emphatic manner, that these great 



not also have been under an arm of the sea at that period. At the same 

 time, we think that the granitic hills between Miask and Troitsk and 

 the chain of Kara-Edir-tau, both of which are destitute of any traces 

 of marine sediment, must have then been above the waters. 



