CRUISE OF STEAMER CORWIN IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN. 81 



The germs are readily transported from the surrounding hills by small streams on the surface, 

 snow-slides, high winds, &c. It is of a parasitic and very rapid growth, covering the most barren 

 ground in a short time, even the dry hard surface of volcanic rock, and that it readily thrives on 

 the ice is shown by the luxuriant growth found by us on every projecting point on the face of the 

 ice cliff. Kotzebue was undoubtedly in error in supposing that the fossil remains of animals 

 found in the vicinity were embedded in the cliff. I examined them carefully each season and 

 saw mi signs of animal remains of any kind, while on the shore, below high-water mark, we 

 found them in abundance. They were not confined to the locality of the cliff, but extended each 

 way as far as our investigations reached. They evidently came from the Buckland River, and 

 were brought down by drifting ice in the spring. The other rivers emptying into Kotzebue Sound 

 contain large numbers of them, as also those emptying into Norton Sound. The natives assured 

 us that large beds of these bones were to be found in the rivers but a few miles inland. Many of 

 the tusks found in America up to the present time are very much decayed from exposure, but it 

 is probable that by digging into the frozen earth they would be found in a perfect state. Our 

 half breed interpreter, Andrew, claimed to have seen large quantities in the bed of a stream which 

 he discovered while on an overland trading voyage from Norton Sound to Kotzebue Sound the 

 previous winter. He said he had taken a small piece on his sled and brought it down near the 

 coast, but finding that it was overloading his dogs, he threw it off and left it. Some of our men 

 accompanied him to the spot and found a portion of a small tusk in a perfect state of preservation. 

 The bones are found generally in the bed of rivers or in the alluvial deposits near their mouths. 

 Many theories have been advanced to account for the accumulation of these bones, and by some 

 writers it was supposed that the animals may have died in large numbers when in herds, but it 

 is altogether likely that the remains were brought together by the action of the thousands of 

 small streams of water formed by the melting snow, which everywhere flood the tundras in the 

 spring. In this way they are carried to the larger rivers, and by them swept down, until by the 

 widening of the river aud the consequent decrease of the strength of the current they become 

 stationary and are in time buried in the alluvium. 



Although the hairy mammoth, as well as a species of ox, whose fossil remains are found, and 

 the hairy rhinoceros, are now extinct, aud have been for many thousands of years, they appear to 

 have been adapted to the cold climate of the present time, as shown by the thick, hairy coat. 

 And from the fact that remains of the mammoth aud rhinoceros have been found with the skin 

 and flesh in a good state of preservation, we may safely conclude that, whatever geological changes 

 may have taken place since these animals became extinct, the climate has not been much warmer 

 than at present. They fed upon the larches, birches, and dwarf willows which abound in the 

 Arctic regions, lining the banks of every ravine, no matter how small. Branches of these trees 

 have been found in the beds of earth with the remains of the animals, aud undigested twigs have 

 been found in the stomach of the mammoth, and a small portion of the same species in the teeth 

 of the rhinoceros. The form of the teeth of both of these animals fits them for masticating this 

 kind of food. According to Professor Ward the height of the mammoth was about 16 feet, and 

 its length, including the forward curve of its tusks, 26 feet or more. Remains of the mammoth 

 were discovered B. C. 300. Later writers mistook some of the larger bones of these animals for 

 antediluvian giants. Some of the boues preserved in ancient Rome were believed to be from 

 part of the skeleton of Pallas, aud are described as being as high as the city wall. Such bones 

 were exhibited in Switzerland as those of a man 19 feet high. In 1638 the same thing was done 

 in France, and a few years after in Scotland were exhibited the boues as of a mau 11 feet high. 

 The mammoth has also been described as the behemoth of the ancient Hebrew Scriptures. 

 Cuvier, in 1796, discovered and announced the fact that these boues belonged to an extinct 

 species of elephant. Their remains have been found in all parts of Europe, Asia, aud America in 

 the Pliocene and post-Pliocene strata. They are most abundant in the far north on the Arctic 

 slopes. In Siberia the natives collect and sell the tusks to Russian traders, who, in time, send 

 them to Europe for the use of manufacturers. Many of the tusks are badly decayed, aud the 

 best, although sound and firm, are not white. The Siberian natives believed the mammoth to be 

 a species of huge mole, which burrowed under the ground and lived and died there, the name 

 S. Ex. 201 11 



