ELEPHAS PRIMIGEN1US. 263 



winter snows of Lapland ; and, were such a quadruped to 

 be clothed, like the Reindeer, with a natural garment 

 capable of resisting the rigours of an arctic winter, its 

 adaptation for such a climate would be complete. Had 

 our knowledge of the Mammoth, indeed, been restricted, 

 as in the case of almost every other extinct animal, to its 

 bones and teeth, it would have been deemed a hazardous 

 speculation to have conceived, a priori, that the extinct 

 ancient Elephant, whose remains were so abundant in the 

 frozen soil of Siberia, had been clad, like most existing 

 quadrupeds adapted for such a climate, with a double gar- 

 ment of close fur and coarse hair; seeing that both the 

 existing species of Elephant are almost naked, or, at best, 

 scantily provided when young with scattered coarse hairs 

 of one kind only. 



The wonderful and unlocked for discovery of an entire 

 Mammoth, demonstrating the arctic character of its na- 

 tural clothing, has, however, confirmed the deductions 

 which might have been legitimately founded upon the 

 localities of its most abundant remains, as well as upon 

 the structure of its teeth, viz., that, like the Reindeer and 

 Musk Ox of the present day, it was capable of existing in 

 high northern latitudes. 



The circumstances of this discovery have been recorded 

 by Mr. Adams, in the ' Journal du Nord, 1 printed at 

 Petersburg in ] 807, and in the 5th volume of the ' Memoirs 

 of the Imperial Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg, 1 of 

 which an excellent English translation was published in 181 9. 



Schumachoff, a Tungusian hunter and collector of fossil 

 ivory, who had migrated in 1799 to the peninsula of Ta- 

 mut, at the mouth of the river Lena, one day perceived 

 amongst the blocks of ice a shapeless mass, not at all re- 

 sembling the large pieces of floating wood which are com- 



