356 Sir R. I. Murchison on the 



The lost races of mammals which have been detected in 

 Russia in Europe are found, we have said, in exactly the 

 same sort of detritus as that in which they occur in the flat 

 northern tracts of Siberia, or near the mouths of its great 

 rivers. In all the central and southern parts of European 

 Russia, there are no high ridges of elevation, and, conse- 

 quently, no coarse local detritus, like that on the flanks of the 

 Ural, so that the mammoth alluvium assumes the same 

 aspect as in the distant plains of Siberia, where it is equally 

 removed from disturbing causes. Here, however, it is equally 

 evident, that such alluvium has been the result of currents of 

 water, for it is piled up, and often tumultuously, in great 

 thicknesses, and constitutes the chief banks of most of the 

 streams, as well as the covering of numerous plateaux. Oc- 

 casionally, indeed, the coarser clay drift passes upwards into 

 flnely levigated silt, which, in certain tracts, may be repre- 

 sented by the rich black earth or tchornozem, of which we 

 shall treat at some length in the last chapter. In illustra- 

 ting the ordinary character of the mammoth alluvia of 

 European Russia, we cannot, perhaps, do better than cite the 

 example of Taganrog, because, exceedingly remote from the 

 regions we have been considering, and, indeed, from any 

 mountains, it there forms the summit of abrupt cliffs on the 

 Sea of Azof, its relations to the underlying strata being well 

 exposed. This mammoth drift is just as completely separated 

 from any deposit resulting from existing agency, as the auri- 

 ferous detritus and coarse clay on the sides of the Ural hills, 

 or as the high mud-banks forming the cliffs of the great 

 Siberian rivers and estuaries, for it covers the whole of the 

 coast plateau, the present adjacent river Krinka, and the Sea 

 of Azof, being 100 feet beneath it. In truth, like similar 

 drift over wide spaces of Central and Southern Russia, it is 

 distributed at various levels, and most clearly indicates con- 



we are informed by Professor Owen, that there are no existing analogues 

 in Siberia to illustrate the Elas mother ium, like the sloths and armadillos 

 of Soutli America, which explain the affinities of the Megatherian ani- 

 mals. See Professor Owen's most remarkable work on the Mylodon. 

 (4to, London, 1842.) 



