ye ae Sent or: 
anengh a 
Lae 
Memoir upon living and fossil Elephants. 309 
Sea. The above naturalist also names the Angara, other- 
wise called the Great Tombuska, among the rivers where 
they have been dug up. Messerschmidt and Pallas mention 
the Chatanga also, a river which falls into the Frozen Sea 
between the Jenissea and the Lena. Isbrand-Ides and Jean 
Bernhard Muller mention Jakutsk, upon the Lena; and the 
Academy of Petersburgh is in possession of a rbinoceros’ 
cranium found not far from the mouth of this river, with 
almost the whole skeleton. 
The Vilhoui, which falls into the Lena, and upon the 
banks of which this whole rhinoceros was found, is certainly 
not devoid of elephants’ bones. 
Upon adding to all these places the shores of the Kolyma 
and the Anadir, spoken of by Pallas, we shall find that there 
is not a spot in Siberia which does not contain elephants’ 
bones. But what will appear, without doubt, still,;more ex- 
traordinary than all we have related, is, that of all places in 
the world, certain islands in the Frozen Sea, to the north 
of Siberia, contain the greatest quantity of elephants’ and 
other bones. 
The island which is nearest,to the continent is 36 leagues 
long. ‘ The whole island,” says the editor of Billing’s Voy- 
age, ‘* with the exception of three or four small rocky moun- 
tains, 1s a mixture of sand and ice; so that when a thaw 
melts a part of the shore, abundance of teeth and bones of 
the mammont are found. 
** All the island,”’ he adds, “ according to the expression 
of the engineer, is formed of the bones of this extraordinary 
animal, of horns and craniums of the buffalo, or of an ani- 
mal resembling it, and some rhinoceros’ horns.” This is 
certainly a very exaggerated description, but it proves how 
yery abundant these bones are. 
Another island, five leagues further of than the former, 
and 12 leagues long, has also plenty of teeth and bones ; 
but a third, at 25 leagues to the northward, showed none of 
them. 
It may be that the south of Asia furnishes these bones in 
as great abundance as the north. 
The most southern parts of Asia hitherto found to con- 
U 3 tain 
