284 Dr Fleming on the insufficiency of the Evidence Jor 



resided in Siberia, but inclined to consider them as having been 

 conveyed by some current of water from another and warmer 

 region, we have to determine the locality of their residence at 

 the very outset of our speculations. Now, these species no 

 longer occur in a living state, in any region of the earth. 

 Their former geographical distribution can be inferred only by 

 the dispersion of their bones. These relics occur very fre- 

 quently in the north of Europe, Asia, and America, in the 

 higher latitudes, become scarcer as we proceed towards the 

 s outh, and do not occur within the geographical limits of the 

 existing races. It is vain, therefore, to have recourse to dilu- 

 vian transportation, when we cannot point out the place from 

 whence they may have been brought. If we admit that these 

 extinct species lie buried in those very regions in which they 

 formerly resided, and the whole circumstances of the case war- 

 rant the conclusion, what are the inferences which we may legi- 

 timately deduce ? That as these species appeared to have 

 lived in Siberia, they consequently must have possessed ha- 

 bits suited to their geographical distribution. This is re- 

 versing the ordinary notions on the subject ; for, instead of 

 suiting the cHmate to the species, we consider the species as 

 suited to the climate. Nor are we left in doubt on the subject. 

 The museum of nature has furnished us with a specimen to 

 which an appeal can be made. The entire carcass of a Sibe- 

 rian elephant, or mammoth, as it is termed by the Russians, 

 was found about twenty-two years ago, by Mr Adams (the 

 bones of which form the skeleton in the Museum of the Impe- 

 rial Academy at Petersburgh), preserved in ice, near the mouth 

 of the river Lena, on the shores of the Frozen Ocean. Did 

 the skin present externally that thinness of hair, scahness of 

 surface, and naked appearance, which characterize the living 

 elephants of the equatorial regions, or did its condition, as to 

 hair, indicate an animal fitted, by its clothing, to reside in a 

 cold climate ? The covering was of three kinds: — bristles nearly 

 black, much thicker than horse hair, and from twelve to six- 

 teen inches in length ; — hair of a reddish-brown colour, about 

 four inches in length ; and wool of the same colour as the hair, 

 but only about an inch in length. Though much of the fur 

 was lost, upwards of thirty pounds weight were gathered from 

 the wet sand bank. Here, then, is a demonstration, that the 



