Habitation and Destruction of the Mammoths. 3GX 



during countless ages, from the largest mass of surface 

 which geological inquiries have yet shewn to have been dry 

 land during that epoch. 



In treating this subject, we have been gradually led on to 

 speculate on features which connect the former with the 

 present surface of a large portion of the earth, and have 

 little other reference to submarine conditions, than the 

 elevation into land of the bottoms of estuaries and sea-shores 

 on the edge of that continent. In the next chapter, however, 

 we must entirely change the scene, by returning to the con- 

 sideration of Russia in Europe, nearly the whole of whose 

 superficies presents phenomena of a very different class, which, 

 we shall endeavour to shew, can alone have been produced 

 by very powerful currents and long-continued submersion 

 under the waters of the sea, — phenomena which, we think, 

 prevailed during the period when the great mammalia were 

 the inhabitants of Siberia and certain southern tracts to which 

 we have alluded. 



P,S. — It may seem remarkable, that in a region like Rus- 

 sia, so extensively tenanted by bears, when first reclaimed 

 by man, we should scarcely have alluded to their occurrence 

 during a former condition of the surface. Their bones, how- 

 ever, have been found, as well as those of horses, elks, and 

 many other animals, on whose remains we have not thought 

 it necessary to expatiate, as they are mere repetitions of a 

 phenomenon common to other parts of Europe. Judging 

 from the analogy of other countries, where the bones of the 

 Ursus speleeus have usually been found in rocky caverns, it 

 is evident, that, from the nature of her surface, Russia in 

 Europe offers very few spots where the geologist might hope 

 to find them. We have, however, alluded to caverns in the 

 Ural Mountains and Siberia (the caves of Yermac on the 

 Tchussovaya, and others on the Issetz, pp. 365 and 368), 

 which being in positions far above the highest floods, and on 

 precipitous faces of palaeozoic limestone, would, if explored 

 by some Russian Buckland, afi*ord, we have little doubt, the 

 remains of extinct animals. — Bussia and the Ural Mountains, 

 vol. i. p. 492. Bj/ SirBoderick Impey Murchison, Edouard de 

 Verneuily and Count Alexander von Key ser ling. 



VOL. XL. NO. LXXX.— APRIL 1846. 2 A 



