Il8 POLAR BEARS ON AN ICEBERG AT SEA. 



It is also conceivable that even large animals may 

 be transported for long" distance by means of ice, and 

 other floating objects. Thus during the summer of 1892 

 two large polar bears were seen upon an iceberg, 

 which had drifted so far south as to be carried across 

 the track of steamers proceeding from Europe to the 

 United States. They were sighted by the steamship 

 Ems, upon May .21, on her passage from Bremen to 

 New York, and were at first imagined to be human 

 beings ; the steamer's course was in consequence changed, 

 so as to bear closer in towards the berg ; when it was 

 ascertained that they were polar bears, no further 

 attempt was therefore made to rescue the adventurous 

 voyagers, and the steamer proceeded on her way.* 

 It has also been supposed that islands have been cut 

 off from the mainland by subsidence, and other great 

 convulsions of Nature, and that some of the creatures 

 of the ancient world have been thus preserved until 

 the present time: these creatures continuing to live 

 and breed upon the island, and so have perpetuated 

 their species until now. All that need be said upon 

 this head is, that it may be so ; but even in that case, 

 it only removes the mystery as to the original evolution 

 of animals by a single step ; for it still fails to explain 

 how they came to inhabit the mainland before the 

 island became detached from it. Certain however it 

 is that very wonderful and strange animal forms have 

 been known to exist on islands. A good instance of 

 this is the wonderful extinct Irish fossil moose or elk 

 (Cervus Hibernicus), specimens of whose horns have 

 been found, measuring at least ten feet across from 

 top to top in a straight line. 



* Scientific American Newspaper of June 4, 1892. 



