VOL. XL.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. J 37 



other countries, besides Siberia, as Poland, Germany, Italy, England, Ireland, 

 and many others; but less common than in Siberia, and not so well preserved, 

 but more wasted and calcined, doubtless by the greater warmth of those 

 climates. 



Hither also are to be referred the large bones found under ground, or rather 

 tusks of elephants, known by the names of ebur, seu unicornu fossile, which 

 are of the same origin with the mammoth's teeth, but different, as they are 

 better preserved, and have still the natural bony substance, and may serve the 

 workmen as natural ivory, and in some measure the physicians and apothecaries 

 as ebur, seu unicornu fossile. 



Of the above bones, the head weighed 1 30+ lb. avoirdupois weight, or 1 52 

 Russian pounds; its length or greatest height is 48 inches; its greatest breadth 

 near the ears 29 inches, 5 lines; its thickness, from the forehead to the nape 

 of the neck, 22 inches, 5 lines. 



One grinder weighs 8 lb. g oz. or 10 lb. Russian ; its greatest length 1 2 inches; 

 its perpendicular height 5 inches; its thickness or breadth, 3 inches; it is made 

 up of above 20 transverse lamellae, a finger thick, perpendicularly erect, lying 

 close to each other, and its root composed of two apophyses. 



The tusk, by some improperly called the horn, of the right side, having a 

 two-fold direction by being bent outward and backward, which is peculiar to the 

 male elephant, it being straighter in the female. It is the ebur fossile of the 

 shops, and weighs 137 lb. or l6o lb. Russian; its length, or the exterior cir- 

 cumference of its back part, was 136 inches, 5 lines; the circumference of the 

 root, where it got clear of the socket, was the greatest, being 1 8 inches 5 

 lines; the subtended arch, from one extremity to the other, 55 inches. 



The tusk answering to the foregoing on the left side, was quite like that on 

 the right, except the contrary direction of its curvature, and its less weight, 

 having lost its point; for it weighed only 1284- lb. or 150 lb. Russian. 



The right thigh-bone weighed 21 lb. 6 oz. or 25 lb. Russian; its perpendi- 

 cular length is 38 inches 5 lines; the greatest breadth of its upper head, or 

 apophysis, 1] inches; its circumference at the middle of the bone about 13 

 inches. 



The bones of this skeleton, with the ribs, vertebrae, and others belonging 

 to it, were found in the side of a sandy steep hill, on the eastern bank of the 

 river Indigirska, which falls into the northern ocean, not far from the mouth 

 of the rivulet Wolockowoi ruszei. And some of these bones are found not 

 only in these parts, but likewise in the sand hills on the rivers Chatanga, Tho- 

 mas, Tobol, Irtisch, &c. which are all at a good distance from the sea; though 

 neither elephants, nor chimerical behemoths, have been ever seen in those 



