FOSSIL REMAINS. 349 



horses are at present almost unknown, except in warm or tem- 

 perate latitudes. 



We may now consider how far the facts we have collected 

 respecting the bones in Eschscholtz Bay are in accordance 

 with similar occurrences, either in the adjoining regions of 

 the north, or in other still more distant parts of the earth, and 

 in different latitudes. 



It is stated by Pallas, in the 17th volume of the New Com- 

 mentaries of the Academy of Petersburgh, 1772, that through- 

 out the whole of northern Asia, from the Don to the extreme 

 point nearest America, there is scai-ce any great river in whose 

 banks they do not find the bones of elephants and other large 

 animals, which cannot now endure the climate of this district, 

 and that all the fossil ivory which is collected for sale through- 

 out Siberia is extracted from the lofty, precipitous, and sandy 

 banks of the rivers of that country ; that in every climate and 

 latitude, from the zone of mountains in central Asia to the 

 frozen coasts of the Arctic Ocean, all Siberia abounds with 

 these bones, but that the best fossil ivory is found in the frozen 

 lands adjacent to the arctic circle ; that the bones of large and 

 small animals lie in some places piled together in great heaps, 

 but in general they are scattered separately, as if they had 

 been agitated by waters, and buried in mud and gravel. 



The term mammoth has been applied indiscriminately to 

 all the largest species of fossil animals, and is a word of Tartar 

 origin, meaning simply " animal of the earth." It is now ap- 

 propriated exclusively to the fossil elephant, of which one 

 species only has been yet established, differing materially from 

 the two existing species, which are limited, one to Asia the 

 other to Africa. 



Of all the fossil animals that have been ever discovered, the 

 most remarkable is the entire carcass of a mammoth, with its 

 flesh, skin, and hair still fresh and well preserved, which in the 

 year 1803 fell from the frozen cliff of a peninsula in Siberia, 

 near the mouth of the Lena*. Nearly five years elapsed between 



* The details of this case were published by Dr. Tilesius in the fifth 

 vol. of the Memoirs of the Academy of Petersburg, and also by Mr. 

 Adams in the Journal du Nord, printed at Petersburg in 1807, 



