88 Smithsonian Exploration in Alaska in 1904 



be quoted to show the occurrence of similar remains in diluvial 

 deposits all over Europe, and largely in America. Having then 

 such extensive accumulations of the bones of animals, and the de- 

 tritus of rocks, all apparently resulting from the simultaneous action 

 of water, but which the operation of existing seas and rivers in the 

 districts occupied by this detritus can never have produced, and 

 are only tending to destroy, we may surely be justified in referring 

 them all to some adequate and common cause, such as the catas- 

 trophe of a violent and general inundation alone seems competent 

 to have afforded. 



" The facts we have been considering are obviously much con- 

 nected with the still unsettled question respecting the former cli- 

 mate and temperature of that part [p. 610] of the earth in which 

 they occur. Too much stress has, I think, been laid on the cir- 

 cumstances of the mammoth in Siberia being covered with hair. 

 We have living examples of animals in warm latitudes which are 

 not less abundantly covered with hair and wool in proportion to 

 their size than the elephant at the mouth of the Lena. Such is the 

 hy?ena villosa lately noticed at the cape by Dr. Smith, and described * 

 as having the hair on the neck and body very long and shaggy, 

 .measuring in many places, but particularly about the sides and 

 back, at least six inches ; again, the thick shaggy covering on the 

 anterior part on the body of the male lion, and the hairy coat of 

 the camel (both of them inhabitants of the warmest climates), pre- 

 sent analogies which show that no conclusive argument in proof 

 that the Siberian elephant was the inhabitant of a cold climate can 

 be drawn from the fact of the skin of the frozen carcass at the. 

 mouth of the Lena having been covered with coarse hair and wool ; 

 but even if it were proved that the climate of the arctic regions 

 was the same both before and after the extirpation of these ani- 

 mals, still must we refer to some great catastrophe to account for 

 the fact of their universal extirpation, and from those who deny 

 the occurrence of such catastrophe, it may fairly be demanded why 

 these extinct animals have not continued to live on to the present 

 hour. It is vain to contend that they have been subdued and extir- 

 pated by man, since whatever may be conceded as possible with 

 respect to Europe, it is in the highest degree improbable that he 

 could have exercised such influence over the vast wilderness of 

 northern Asia, and almost impossible that he could have done so 

 in the boundless forests of North America. The analogv of the non- 



^t>.' 



^Vol. XV, Plate 2, page 463, Linn. Trans. 



