Memoir upon living and fossil: Elephants. 305 
Pontoppidan also mentions after Torfeeus a cranium and 
a tooth found in Iceland of a prodigious size. 
Of all the countries in the world, the vast empire of Russia 
contains the greatest quantities of fossil bones, particu- 
larly in those provinces where we might least expect to find 
them, the frozen regions of Siberia. 
Russia in Europe contains great quantities in- several 
places ; an immense quantity was found in 1773 at Swija- 
towski, 17 wersts from Petersburg. 
There is in the Petersburg cabinet a tusk from the neich= 
bourhood of Archangel, in “the valley of the Dwina. Cort 
neille le Brun mentions some tusks found near the surface 
of the ground at Vorones upon the Tanais. . There is an im= 
miense collection of them, as well as of the bones of various 
other animals, upon the banks of the Tanais, n near the town 
of Kostyusk. 
M. Pallas, in his recent travels through the southern pro 
vinces of Russia, mentions several pews between the Tanais 
and the Wolga; particularly the environs of Pensa, and two 
other places nearer the Wolga. 
As to Asiatic Russia properly so called, the testimony of 
travellers and naturalists agrees in representing that region as 
swarming with fossil elephants. 
This phenomenon is so general there, that the inhabitants 
have invented a fable to explain it; and they tell us that 
these bones and tusks belong to a subterraneous animal living 
in the manner of the mole, but never being permitted to see 
the light of day. They have named this animal sammont, 
or mammouth according to some, from the word mamma, - 
which signifies earth in some Tartar idioms; according to 
others, from the Arabian word behemoth, employed in the 
book of Job for a large unknown animal, or mehemoth, an 
epithet which the Arabs are accustomed to add to the name 
of elephant (/h/) when it is very large. 
They describe the tusks found in Russia by the appella- 
tion of mammont horns (mammonto vakost): these tusks are 
so numerous and so well preserved, particularly in the south- 
ern parts, that they are employed in the same manner as 
fresh ivory; and they form an article of commerce so im- 
Vol. 26. No. 104. Jan,1807. U portant, 
