48 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



frozen in a mass of ice, at a depth of sixty 

 feet, so well preserved that it was still covered 

 with hair, as in life. They melted the ice to 

 remove the animal, but the skeleton alone re- 

 mained complete ; the hide was spoiled by con- 

 tact with the air, and only a few pieces have 

 been kept, one of which is in the Museum at 

 Stuttgart. The hairs upon it are as coarse as 

 fine twine, and nearly a foot long. The entire 

 skeleton is at St. Petersburg in the Museum, 

 and is larger than the largest elephant. One 

 may judge by that what havoc such an ani- 

 mal must have made, if it was, as its teeth 

 show it to have been, carnivorous. But what 

 I would like to know is how this animal could 

 wander so far north, and then in what man- 

 ner it died, to be frozen thus, and remain in- 

 tact, without decomposing, perhaps for count- 

 less ages. For it must have belonged to a 

 former creation, since it is nowhere to be 

 found living:, and we have no instance of the 



O' 



disappearance of any kind of animal within 

 the historic period. There were, besides, 

 many other kinds of fossil animals. The col- 

 lection of birds is very beautiful, but it is a 

 pity that many of them are wrongly named. 

 I corrected a number myself. . . . From 

 Stuttgart we went to Esslingen, where we 



