(II 



r.i.i:riiANT. 



K I. IT HA NT. 



616 



which the white bean had trod into the ground while devouring its 

 flesh. Although thu was difficult from the want of proper iintru- 

 mente, I succeeded in collecting more than pood (36 pound.) of hir. 

 In few days the work was completed, and I found inywlf in posees- 

 too of treasure which amply recompensed me for the fatipes tod 

 datum of the journey, and the considerable expenses of the enter- 

 prise. The place where I found the Mammoth U about 60 paoei dto- 

 taut from the shore, and nearly 100 paoM from the escarpment of the 

 ice from which it had Mien. This escarpment occupies exactly the 

 middle between the twe poiuU of the peninsula, and u 8 went* long 

 (2 mile*) ; and in the place where the Mammoth was found thia rock 

 baa a perpendicular elevation of 30 or 40 toises. Its substance is a 

 clear pure ice ; it inclines towards the sea ; its top is covered with a 

 layer of moss and friable earth half an archine (14 inches) in thick- 

 ness. During the heat of the month of July a part of this crust is 

 melted, but the rest remains froien. Curiosity induced me to ascend 

 two other bills at some distance from the sea ; they were of the same 

 substance, and less covered with moss. In various places were seen 

 enormous pieces of wood of all the kinds produced in Siberia; and also 

 Mammoths' horns (tusks) in great numbers appeared between the 

 hollows of the rocks ; they all were of astonishing freshness. How' 

 all these things could become collected there, is a question as curious 

 as it is difficult to resolve. The inhabitants of the coast call this kind 

 of wood Adamachina, and distinguinh it from the floating pieces of 

 wood which are brought down by the large rivers to the ocean, and 

 collect in masses on the shores of the Frozen Sea. The latter are 

 called Noachina. I have seen, when the ice melts, large lumps of 



of the ' Memoirs of the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Peters- 

 burg,' London, 1819, 4to. 



Remains of the A'fej.Anj ja-imigrniut have been found in great 

 numbers in the British Island*. Mr. Woodward, in his 'Geology of 

 Norfolk,' calculates that upwards of 2000 grinders of this animal 

 have been dredged up by the fishermen off Happisburgh in the space 

 of thirteen years. Along the coast of Suffolk the remains of the 

 Mammoth are scarcely less numerous, especially in the pleistocene 

 beds at Stutton. At the village of Walton, near Harwich, abundance 

 of these remains have been found, mixed with the bones of the horse, 

 the ox, ad the deer. They have also occurred in many other parts 

 of Essex. They are found at Herne Bay, in the valley of the Thames, 

 at Sheppey, Lewisham, Woolwich, and the Isle of Dogs. They have 

 been dug up in the streets of London, as in Gray's Inn Lane, and 

 in Charles-street, St. James's Square. West of the metropolis they 

 have been dug up at Kensington, Kew, Henley Bottom, Wallingford, 

 and Dorchester. They occur on the south coast at Brighton, Hove, 

 Worthing, Lyme Regis, and Chin-mouth. District* in Worcestershire, 

 Warwickshire-, Staffordshire, Northamptonshire, York" hire, the cele- 

 brated cave at Kirkdale, bnv.' all yielded remains of this gigantic 

 animal, frequently occurring with the remains of the hippopotamus 

 and rhinoceros. Not only are these remains found on the dry land, 

 but they have been dredged up repeatedly in the German Ocean and 

 the British Chain.. 1. 



" The remains of the Mammoth," says Professor Owen, "occur on 

 the continent, as in England, in the superficial deposits of sand, 

 gravel, and loam, which are strewed over all parta of Europe ; and 



Mummoth found in Siberia. Reduced from the lithographic plate mentioned at the end of the description. 



earth detached from the hills mix with the water, and form thick 

 muddy torrents which roll slowly towards the sea. This earth forms 

 wedges which fill up the spaces between the blocks of ice. The 

 escarpment of ice was 86 to 40 touea high ; and, according to the 

 report of the Tungusians, the animal was when they first saw it 7 

 toises below the surface of the ice, Ac. On arriving with the Mam- 

 moth at Borchaya our first care was to separate the remaining flesh 

 and ligaments from the bone*, which were then packed up. V. !,. u 

 I arrived at Jakutik I had the good fortune to repurchase the tucks, 

 and thence expedited the whole to St Petersburg!!." The skeleton is 

 now in the Museum of the Acadtmy, and the skin still remains 

 attached to the head and feet A part of the fkin and some of the 

 hair of this animal were sent by Mr. Adams to Sir Joseph Banks, who 

 presented them to the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. 

 The hair Is entirely separated from the skin excepting in one very 

 small part, where it still remains attached. It consists of two sorts, 

 common hair sod bristles, and of each there are several varieties dif- 

 fering in length and thickness. That remaining fixed on the skin is 

 of the colour of the camel, an inch and a half long, very thick set, and 

 curled in locks. It is interspersed with a few bristles about three 

 inches long, of a dark reddish colour. Among the separate parcels of 

 hair are some rather redder than the thort hair just mentioned, about 

 four inches long ; and some bristles nearly black, much thicker than 

 horse-hair, and from twelve to eighteen inches long. The skin when 

 first brought to the museum was offensive ; it in now quite dry and 

 ban), find where most compact is half an inch thick. Its colour is 

 the dull black of the living elephant*. (' On the Mammoth, or Fossil 

 Kli pliant, found in the Ice at the Mouth of the River Lena in Siberia, 

 with a Lithographic Plate of the Skeleton.' From the fifth volume 



they are found in still greater abundance in the same formations of 

 Asia, especially in the higher latitudes, where the soil which forms 

 their matrix is perennially frozen. 



" Remains of the Mammoth have been found in great abundance 

 in the cliffs of frozen mud on the east side of Bt-h ring's Straits, in 

 Eschscboltz's Bay, in Russian America, 66 N. lat. ; and they hare 

 been traced, but in scantier quantities, as far south as the states of 

 Oli in, Kcntuckey, Missouri, and South Carolina. 



" But no authentic relics of the Eltjihai jirimiijeni** have yet been 

 discovered in tropical latitudes, or in any part of the southern hemi- 

 sphere. It would thus appear that the primeval elephants formerly 

 ranged over the whole northern hemisphere of the globe, from the 

 40th to the 60th, and possibly to near the 70th degree of latitude. 

 Here, at least at the mouth of the river Lena, the carcass of a Mam- 

 moth has been found preserved entire, in the icy cliffs and frozen soil 

 of that coast. To account for this extraordinary phenomenon geolo- 

 gists and naturalists, biassed more or less by the analogy of the 

 existing elephants, which are restricted to climes where the trees 

 flourish with perennial foliage, have had recourse to the hypothesis 

 of a change of climate in the northern hemisphere either sudden and 

 due to a great geological cataclysm, or gradual and brought about by 

 progressive alternations of land and sea, 



" I am far from believing that such changes in the external world 

 were the cause of the ultimate extinction of the Klfjihat primigtniui; 

 but I am convinced that the peculiarities in its ascertained organination 

 are such as to render it quite possible for the animal to have existed 

 as near the pole as is compatible with the growth of hardy trees or 

 shrubs. The fact seems to have been generally overlooked that an 

 animal organised to gain its subsistence from the branches or woody 



