UNCLE IN ENGLAND. 71 



nearly resembles the Asiatic than the other. The 

 remains of this animal have been found also in 

 the alluvial soil round London, and in a great 

 many parts of England, and even in this county. 

 In Ireland also, in Sweden and Norway, and 

 in almost every country of Europe, they have 

 been discovered. Humboldt found their teeth 

 in South America ; the North American natu- 

 ralists have also found them ; and lately, Lieu- 

 tenant Kotzebue, the Russian navigator, per- 

 ceived them in an iceberg near Behring's Straits. 

 But it is in Asiatic Russia that they occur in the 

 greatest abundance : there is scarcely a river 

 there with alluvial banks that does not afford 

 remains of the mammoth, and generally accom- 

 panied by marine shells." 



My uncle then was so good as to go to the 

 library for an account of a fossil elephant that 

 was found in a state of perfect preservation, 

 though its great antiquity is evident, from the 

 whole race to which it had belonged being now 

 extinct. The account was drawn up by the cele- 

 brated M. Cuvier, from observations made on 

 the spot by Mr. Adams. 



"In the year 1799, a portion of an ice- bank, 

 near the mouth of the river Lena in the north 

 of Siberia, having fallen down, a Tungusian 

 fisherman perceived a strange shapeless mass 

 projecting from the remaining cliff of ice, but at 

 a height far beyond his reach. The next year 



