260 THE WORLDS LUMBER ROOM. 



gigantic bird, which also may have been the ancestor of the 

 gold-guarding dragons of fairy lore. 



Nowhere are the remains of both mammoth and 

 rhinoceros more plentiful than in the lowlands adjoining 

 the Icy Sea. Multitudes are buried between the Lena and 

 Kolimar, and one of the New Siberian islands is little more 

 than a mass of mammoth bones, which have been worked 

 for many years by the traders. One single sandbank has 

 furnished the best harvest of tusks for eighty years past, 

 and, in 1844, Siberian ivory, to the amount of 16,000 Ibs., 

 was sold in St. Petersburg. At least one hundred pairs of 

 tusks are still sent to the market every year. 



Many limestone caves contain large quantities of 

 animal remains ; but stalagmite is not such a good preserver 

 as ice, and nothing is left but bones, most of which are 

 broken, rubbed, rolled, or polished, as if they had been 

 carried long distances by water. 



Often, no doubt, the animals were surprised by sudden 

 torrents, carried into the caves, and buried in mud, over 

 which a crust of stalagmite afterwards was formed ; but often 

 also they lived and died on the spot where their remains 

 are found. 



At least 300 hyaenas of different ages were buried in the 

 Kirkdale cavern in Yorkshire, which contains also the bones 

 of wolves, bears, birds, &c., and as all the latter are gnawed, 

 while the former are not, we may conclude that the cave 

 was once the home of many generations of hyaenas, and that 

 the other animals were only dragged there to be devoured. 



In other caves, the bones of hundreds of cave-bears, 

 wolves, lions, tigers, as well as of the mammoth, have been 



