THE MAMMOTH. 209 



eviscerating the animal, I was as careless and forgetful as my 

 Jakuti, who did not notice that the ground was sinking under 

 their feet, until a fearful scream warned me of their misfortune, 

 as I was still groping in the animal's stomach. Shocked, I sprang 

 up, and beheld how the river was burying in its waves our five 

 Jakuti and our laboriously saved beast. Fortunately, the boat 

 was near, so that our poor workpeople were all saved, but the 

 Mammoth was swallowed up by the waves, and never more made 

 its appearance." 



Much may be learned from this highly interesting account ; it 

 contains the key to several questions which otherwise might have 

 remained unsolved. Let us see what conclusions can be derived 

 therefrom. First, its position and perfect state of preservation 

 are sufficient to prove that it was buried where it died. It sank 

 in a marsh, probably during the summer. Then came the cold 

 of winter ; the carcase, together with the ground around it, was 

 frozen so that decomposition was arrested, and frozen it must have 

 remained for many centuries till the day when M. Benkendorf 

 came across it. Or it may have been buried up in a snow-drift 

 which in time became ice. 



In the region where frozen Mammoths occur (and there are at 

 least nine cases on record), a considerable thickness of frozen 

 soil may be found at all seasons of the year ; so that if a carcase 

 be once embedded in mud or ice, its putrefaction may be arrested 

 for indefinite ages. According to one authority, the ground is 

 now permanently frozen even to the depth of four hundred feet 

 at the town of Jakutsh, on the western bank of the river Lena. 

 Throughout a large part of Siberia the boundary cliffs of the lakes 

 and rivers consist of earthy materials and ice in horizontal layers. 

 Middendorf bored to the depth of seventy feet, and after passing 

 through much frozen soil mixed with ice, came down upon a 

 solid mass of pure transparent ice, the depth of which he was 

 unable to ascertain. 



The year 1846, when M. Benkendorf saw his Mammoth, was 



p 



