184 MAMMALS. 



to the west of Europe ; and in some of the isles in the Arctic Sea situated near the mouths of the 

 rivers where the carcasses have been met with, their remains occur in such quantity tliat the soil 

 is a mixture of sand, ice, and Mammoth bones. It stretched across the steppes of Russia, through 

 Germany and France, to England. Its remains have also been found in Italj-, although much 

 more sparingly south of the Alps than to the north of them. The great accumulations on 

 the shore of the Arctic Sea are doubtless the result of carcasses having been floated by 

 floods from the higher lands down the rivers. 



It is usually said that it flourished in as great numbers in North America, but Dr. Leidy, and 

 some American palaeontologists, have thought that it was a different species which existed there, and 

 that the Old-world Mammoth was confined to Europe and Asia. At any rate plentiful remains of 

 a species of Mammoth are found all over North America, and in especial numbers on its Polar 

 shores, in similar conditions and places to those in Siberia, where the other species occurs. Most 

 other paleontologists, however, think the species identical. Dr. Falconer,* admitting that there is 

 a sufficient difference (although a very trifling one) to enable him to distinguish American 

 specimens from those of Europe or Asia. It is interesting to see that the same causes which have 

 have produced the variation between closely allied North American and European existing species 

 were already in action in the time of the Mammoth. The bridge at Bliering's Straits must have 

 been already sunk. 



One of these differences is the comparative closeness of the laminae of the molar teeth. Dr. 

 Falconer gives an interesting comparison of the food used by the ditferent species, and the adaptation 

 of their teeth to its consumption, which suggests an additional argument for the formation of new 

 species in new coimtries where the food maj' differ from that in the country whence they first 

 came. Their molar teeth consist of broad tables composed of parallel transverse vertical plates 

 consisting of successive layers of cement, enamel, and ivory — each of different degrees of hard- 

 ness ; and different degrees of power are given to these implements by the number of plates 

 in each tooth, and by the extent of each tooth which is brought into operation at the same 

 time ; the greater the number of jjlates working, the more powerful the triturating surfaces. 

 Estimated according to this princii^le, the African Elephant has less powerfid grinders than the 

 Indian Elephant and the Mammoth. The number of plates in the teeth of these two are the same 

 (sixty-four ridges), while in the African species they are only half as many (thirty-two ridges), and 

 the Mammoth, although it has the same number of ridges, has them thinner, straighter, and more 

 regular. As the powers of trituration are feeblest in the African species, so its food is, in point of 

 fact, softest, consisting partly of roots and in a great measure of succulent plants, such as the Portu- 

 LACARiA Afra or Spekboom. The food of the Indian Elei^hant consists more of branches, and is 

 more siliceous, often containing a greater proportion of foreign matter, as sand about the roots of 

 grasses, and j'oung bamboos (Saccharum spontaneum) ; and its molars are the most powerful grinding 

 instrviments of any. The difference between its teeth and those of the Mammoth is that 

 between a strong coarse file and a fine one. The food of the Mammoth, again, was probably 

 the young twigs of soft-wooded Conifers, and required a less powerful apparatus. Falconer 



* "The result of my observation is that the ancient paratively modern Mammoth of the superficial bogs of 



Mammoth of the pre-glacial ' forest bed ' of the Norfolk North America, which I regard as being only a slight 



coast differs less from the later form occurring on the geographical variety of the same species." — Falconer, op. 



banks of the Lena, than does the latter from the com- cit. p. 79. 



