THE MAMMOTH. 61 



drew, is not known, yet it is possible that such may have 

 been the case. If this be true, then its extinction is ac- 

 counted for, but if not, then what was said relative to the 

 disappearance of the mastodon may also be applied to the 

 mammoth. In any case it is not to be presumed that a sud- 

 den and awful calamity overwhelmed it. Sir Charles Lyell 

 has very justly remarked that "between the period 

 when the mammoth was most abundant, and that when it 

 died out, there must have elapsed a long interval of ages 

 when it was growing more and more scarce ; and we may 

 expect to find occasional stragglers buried in deposits long 

 subsequent in date to others, until at last we may succeed 

 in tracing a passage from the post-Pliocene to the recent 

 fauna, by geological monuments, which fill up the gap." ^ 



IX. PRESERVATION OF REMAINS. 



The preservation of the bones throughout Europe and 

 America is due to the same cause or causes as the preser- 

 vation of the bones of the mastodon ; but in Siberia the 

 preservation of the bones, and even of the entire carcass, 

 is due to cold. So long as the body is encased in ice it is 

 impossible for it to decay. It will be preserved intact. 

 There can be no doubt but that these bodies preserved in 

 ice have remained enveloped ever since the day they per- 

 ished, for had the matrix been disturbed it would have 

 allowed the free percolation of water, which would have de- 

 composed the soft parts of the animal. The climate is most 

 favorable for preservation. iSl"ear the mouths of the Lena, 

 at all seasons, at a depth of a few feet, frozen soil may be 

 found, and, according to Professor Von Baer, the ground 

 is now frozen permanently to a depth of four hundred feet 

 at the town of Yakutsk, on the banks of the Lena, six 

 hundred miles distant from the Polar Sea. Throughout a 

 wide area the boundary cliifs of the lakes and rivers con- 



* " Antiquity of Man," p. 353. 



