or Fossil Elephant. 99 



case of the Mammoth, which forms more particularly the subject 

 of this memoir, if the rumour of its discovery had not reached Mr. 

 Adams, a man of great ardour in pursuit of science, who under- 

 took the labour of a journey to these frozen regions, and of pre- 

 paring these gigantic remains and transporting them to a great 

 distance. 



The preservation of the flesh of the mammoth through a 

 long series of ages, is not to be wondered at, when we recollect 

 the constant cold and frost of the climate in which it was found. 

 It is a common practice to preserve meat and berries through 

 the winter by freezing them, and to send fish, and all other 

 provisions, annually at that period, from the most remote of 

 the northern provinces, to St. Petersburg and other parts of 

 the empire. 



The following interesting account is given by Gmelin, of the 

 depth to which the ground is thawed in summer. (Floret Si- 

 bericce, Pref. xlvii.) " At Jakutsk, on the 8th of June, I or- 

 dered the ground to be dug in an elevated field, as deep as it 

 was thawed. The mould extended to the depth of eleven 

 inches ; underneath it was sand, which was soft to the depth of 

 two feet and a half, when it became harder ; and after digging 

 half a foot lower, it was very hard, and scarcely yielded to the 

 spade, so that the ground was thawed scarcely four feet. I 

 directed the same experiment to be tried at a lower spot not far 

 distant. The mould was ten inches deep, the soft sand two feet 

 four inches, but below this every thing was frozen quite hard. 

 Moreover, various berries, which the Jakutski consider as de- 

 licacies, may be preserved in caves in the same state, that is, 

 continually frozen, although the caves are scarcely the depth of 

 six feet." 



I shall now proceed to the account which Mr. Adams has 

 published of his journey to the Icy Sea, and to the place where 

 the carcase of the Mammoth, whose skeleton is now to be seen 

 in our museum, was found lying on the sand and ice. It was 

 first published in the Journal du Nord, printed at St. Peters- 

 burg, in 1807, under the title of Relation abrige d'un Voyage H 

 la Mer Glaciate, et Dicouverte dcs restes d'un Mammouth" and 

 H2 



