or Fossil Elephant. 103 



when the fishing season in the Lena is over, Schumachof gene- 

 rally goes with his brothers to the peninsula of Tamut, where 

 they employ themselves in hunting, and where the fresh fish of 

 the sea oflTer them a wholesome and agreeable food. In 1799 

 he had constructed for his wife some cabins on the banks of the 

 lake Oncoul, and had embarked to seek along the coasts for 

 Mammoth horns. One day he perceived among the blocks of 

 ice a shapeless mass, not at all resembling the large pieces of 

 floating wood which are commonly found there. To observe it 

 nearer, he landed, climbed up a rock, and examined this new 

 object on all sides, but without being able to discover what 

 it was. 



* The following year (1800), he found the carcase of a walrus, 

 (Trichecus Rosmarus.) He perceived, at the same time, that the 

 mass he had before seen was more disengaged from the blocks 

 of ice, and had two projecting parts, but was still unable to make 

 out its nature. Towards the end of the following summer (1801) 

 the entire side of the animal and one of his tusks, were quite 

 free from the ice. On his return to the borders of the lake 

 Oncoul, he communicated this extraordinary discovery to his 

 wife and some of his friends ; but the way in which they consi- 

 dered the matter filled him with grief. The old men related on 

 the occasion their having heard their fathers say, that a similar 

 monster had been formerly seen in the same peninsula, and that 

 all the family of the person who discovered it had died soon 

 afterwards. The Mammoth was, in consequence, unanimously 

 considered as an augury of future calamity, and the Tungusian 

 chief was so much alarmed that he fell seriously ill ; but becoming 

 convalescent, his first idea was the profit which he might obtain 

 by selling the tusks of the animal, which were of extraordinary 

 size and beauty. He ordered that the place where the Mammoth 

 was found should be carefully concealed, and that strangers 

 should, under different pretexts, be diverted from it, at the same 

 time charging trust-worthy people to watch that the treasure was 

 not carried off. 



' But the summer of 1802, which was less warm and more 

 windy than conmion, caused llie Mammoth to remain buried in 



