REVOLUTIONS. 93 



tant of a cold region. Its characters served to remove all 

 doubt upon the subject. It consisted of three kinds; 

 bristles, nearly black, much thicker than horse hair, and 

 from twelve to eighteen inches in length ; hairs of a red- 

 dish-brown colour, about four inches in length ; and wool 

 of the same colour as the hair, but only about an inch and 

 a half long *. These circumstances demonstrate, that this 

 species of elephant was suited to reside in the temperate 

 and cold regions, in which its bones are at present disco- 

 vered, and that the climate of Siberia, at the time when the 

 mammoth flourished, was the same in temperature, or near- 

 ly so, as it is at present. These facts, viewed in con- 

 nection with others equally striking with regard to the 

 fossil rhinoceros, indicate the impropriety of speculating 

 about the origin of fossil animals, without having previously 

 determined the species, or attended to the laws which re- 

 gulate the distribution of the existing races. 



While there are many genera, containing both extinct 

 and recent species, there are other genera, which have no 

 living examples, as Belemnites, Mastodon, Anoplotheri- 

 um, and Palaeotherium. These facts seem to indicate a 

 former condition of the Earth's surface, very different from 

 that which prevails at present in any latitude. 



It has frequently been remarked by British and conti- 

 nental writers, that in the same quarry, or mine, the or- 

 ganic remains, contained in one bed often differ from 



* This interesting skeleton is now put up in the Museum of the Imperial 

 Academy of Sciences of St Petersburgh. The skin still remains attached to 

 the head and the feet. The fore-leg, which was not found, has been restored 

 in plaster of Paris from the other side. The whole is nine feet four inches 

 in height, and sixteen feet four inches in length, from the point of the nose 

 to the end of the tail. The tusks are nine feet six inches in length, mea- 

 suring along the curve, and, together, weighed 360 Ib. avoirdupois ; the head 

 alone, without the tusks, weighed 4H Ib. avoirdupois. 



