Land Ice and the Mammoth 59 



XL — Land Ice and the Mammoth 



I. ASSOCIATION OF PLEISTOCENE MAMMAL REMAINS WITH ICE 



The writer considers Tolmatschow's conclusions as to the hori- 

 zon of the mammoth to be unestabUshed by the facts surrounding 

 the finding of the Beresowka carcass, but beyond pointing out that 

 it is not proved that this carcass came from above the ice bed there 

 appear to be no suggestions to offer. Laifortunately there is every 

 possible doubt about the true original position of this carcass, there 

 being three horizons as far as position is concerned in which it may 

 have been originally entombed. They are in descending order : 

 (i) The clay and shingle layers intermingled with lamellar sheets 

 of ice above; (2) the thicker, homogeneous and more fundamental 

 (from a stratigraphic standpoint) ice-bed that forms the conspicu- 

 ous part of the escarpment of the terrace wall; (3) from the Pleis- 

 tocene clays underlying this thicker bed of ice. 



As the writer's experience has been confined to Alaska, where as 

 before stated no authentic instance of the occurrence of Pleisto- 

 cene mammal remains is known in primar}' stratigraphic position, 

 it is impossible to state whether the mammoth was confined to any 

 particular one of the three horizons enumerated above or may not 

 be found in all three of them. 



Tolmatschow says : " As until now the bones and carcasses of 

 mammoths have been found only in the earth layers on the ice, 

 Toll thinks that the ice sheet represents a deposit stratigraphically 

 independent from the upper one containing the bones of the mam- 

 moth. The Beresowka occurrence seems to confirm this supposi- 

 tion. But by the observations of Herz's expedition so many new 

 things have been learned about the way mammoths lived, that we 

 may imagine another reason for finding the mammoth in the earth 

 layers on the ice. 



" The remains of reeds and other grasses found in the mouth 

 (partly on the tongue) and in the stomach of the mammoth show 

 us, that at least in this case (and, it better be modified, at that par- 

 ticular moment), the animal was graminivorous, an inhabitant of the 

 meadows, and these meadows were found by the animals on the 

 river terraces, which in spring were likely to be under water and 

 in summer, in spite of the layer of ice under them, were covered 

 with a magnificent vegetation. In such meadows, perhaps where 

 swampy, mammoths occasionally became engulfed and disappeared 

 without having swallowed their food. It is likely such occurrences 

 happened often on the terraces. Along with the animals fallen on 



