THE MAMMOTH. « 55 



that because an animal flourishes under a high tempera- 

 ture, consequently all remains of that family or class must 

 be assigned to the same climate, is fallacious. The tiger 

 is classed as a tropical animal, and yet it is sometimes 

 seen at the very edge of perpetual snow in the Himalaya, 

 among the snows of Mt, Ararat, and is common in the 

 neighborhood of Lake Aral, near Sussac, in lat. 45° N., 

 and are also found in lat. 48° and 53° N. In the summer 

 of 1828 a tiger was killed on the Lena, in lat. 52^° N., a 

 climate colder than that of St. Petersburg. The zebra 

 roams over the tropical plains, while the horse successfully 

 withstands a rigorous winter; the buffalo prefers a mild 

 temperature, but the musk-ox the stinted herbage of the 

 arctic regions, while the common ox prospers almost every- 

 where. The African and polar hares have their geograph- 

 ical distribution expressed in their respective names, and, 

 as is well known, bears are found in various regions and 

 climates. 



As early as 1829 Dr. Fleming called in question the sup- 

 position that the bones of the mammoth, and others asso- 

 ciated, implied a tropical climate. Other writers soon fol- 

 lowed upon the same line of argument, and at the present 

 time it is universally admitted that it withstood the rigors 

 of the Siberian climate. This conclusion is not difficult 

 of belief, for, in many respects, the mammoth was decid- 

 edly different from the two living species of elephant ; and 

 if the tiger in our own times can range to the borders 

 of Siberia, or skirt the perpetual snow of the Himalaya, 

 why may not this colossal pachyderm, with its triple cloth- 

 ing, have approached still nearer the Frozen Ocean ? To 

 this should be added the fact that the animal has been 

 found entire in the ice, thus proving beyond all question 

 that it endured a cold climate. It must be observed that 

 the mammoth did not inhabit the northernmost flat tracts 

 of Siberia, in which the remains are so abundant, for at 



