1>3S PRESERVATION <)F FROZEN CARCASSES. [CHAI-. xi. 



frozen rhinoceros in Siberia, is very interesting. Although it is a 

 fallacy, as I have endeavoured to show in a former chapter, to 

 suppose that the larger quadrupeds require a luxuriant vegetation 

 for their support, nevertheless it is important to find in the South 

 Shetland Islands, a frozen uuder-soil within 360 miles of the forest- 

 clad islands near Cape Horn, where, as far as the bulk of vegetation 

 is concerned, any number of great quadrupeds might be supported. 

 The perfect preservation of the carcasses of the Siberian elephants 

 and rhinoceroses is certainly one of the most wonderful facts in 

 geology ; but independently of the imagined difficulty of supplying 

 them with food from the adjoining countries, the whole case is not, 

 I think, so perplexing as it has generally been considered. The 

 plains of Siberia, like those of the Pampas, appear to have been 

 formed under the sea, into which rivers brought down the bodies 

 of many animals ; of the greater number of these, only the skeletons 

 have been preserved, but of others the perfect carcass. Now, it is 

 known that in the shallow sea on the Arctic coast of America the 

 bottom freezes,* and does not thaw in spring so soon as the surface 

 of the land ; moreover at greater depths, where the bottom of the 

 sea does not freeze, the mud a few feet beneath the top layer might 

 remain even in summer below 32, as in the case on the land with 

 the soil at the depth of a few feet. At still greater depths, the 

 temperature of the mud and water would probably not be low 

 enough to preserve the flesh ; and hence, carcasses drifted beyond 

 the shallow parts near an Arctic coast, would have only their 

 skeletons preserved : now in the extreme northern parts of Siberia 

 bones are infinitely numerous, so that even islets are said to bo 

 almost composed of them ; f and those islets lie no less than ten 

 degrees of latitude north of the place where Pallas found the 

 frozen rhinoceros. On the other hand, a carcass washed by a flood 

 into a shallow part of the Arctic Sea, would be preserved for an 

 indefinite period, if it were soon afterwards covered with mud 

 sufficiently thick to prevent the heat of the summer- water penetrat- 

 ing to it ; and if, when the sea-bottom was upraised into land, the 

 covering was sufficiently thick to prevent the heat of the summer 

 air and sun thawing and corrupting it. 

 Recapitulation. I will recapitulate the principal facts with 



* Messrs. Boaso and Simpson, in Geograph. Journ., vol. viii. pp. 218 

 t Cuvier (Ossemens Fossiles, torn. i. p. 151), from Billing's Voyage. ' 



