90 M. Renoir on the Traces of Ancient Glaciers. 



existence of a general ice, it has been objected, that there is no 

 necessity for admitting cataclysms in order to explain the disap- 

 pearance of the species of animals whose remains are found in 

 the debris of the diluvium, as it may be accounted for by the 

 progress of civilization. We have by no means been understood. 

 Our intention was not to explain the disappearance of mammoths 

 from the north of Europe and Asia ; we wished only to shew 

 that the complete destruction, in the north, of animals whose 

 congeners have been organized for high temperatures, and the 

 actual presence of their remains in the Polar ice, went to 

 support our hypothesis. Further, the scarcely commenced 

 civilization among the Samoyedes and the scanty population 

 of these countries, were not very likely, particularly at the 

 period in question, to cause mammoths to disappear com- 

 pletely. This species, moreover, must have existed there only, 

 and could not have gone, like others displaced by civilization, 

 to take refuge in other regions, since traces of it are nowhere 

 else to be found. 



It has been further objected that " fossil elephants could not 

 have lived in those parts of Siberia where they are now buried, 

 on account of the scarcity of vegetables to serve them for food, 

 and that the circumstances attending the deposit of these 

 animals shew that they have been enclosed successively and by 

 slow actions.'^'' It has not been observed that we stated that 

 the life of these animals terminated an epoch when the tem- 

 perature of the earth's surface was still sensibly the same in 

 every part, and that the cold was only beginning to be felt. 

 The Siberia of which we speak had therefore no resem- 

 blance to the present ; there vegetation was as fine and vi- 

 gorous, and perhaps even more so, than that we now see be- 

 tween the tropics. No congelation had hitherto occurred on the 

 earth. "With regard to the mode of their deposition, it may be 

 the result of the action of the great waters necessarily pro- 

 duced by the general melting of the ice, which must have fre- 

 quently moved the remains of these animals. 



All the phenomena to which the name of diluvian is given, 

 and to explain which such great efforts have been made with- 

 out any satisfactory result, may be made to agree, and in a 

 very natural manner, with the hypothesis of a general ice. 

 We shall again refer, on this subject, to an example which we 

 did nothing more than point out to the society at its meeting 



