264 PROBOSCIDIA. 



monly found there. To observe it nearer, he landed, 

 climbed up a rock, and examined this new object on all 

 sides, but without being able to discover what it was. 

 The following year he perceived that the mass was more 

 disengaged from the blocks of ice, and had two projecting 

 parts. Towards the end of the next year (1801), the en- 

 tire side of the animal, and one of its tusks, were quite 

 free from the ice. On his return to the borders of the 

 Lake Oncoul, he communicated this extraordinary dis- 

 covery to his wife and some of his friends, but their re- 

 ception of the news filled him with grief. The old men 

 related how they had heard their fathers say, that a similar 

 monster had been formerly discovered on the same penin- 

 sula, and that all the family of the person who discovered 

 it had died soon afterwards. The Mammoth was conse- 

 quently regarded as an augury of future calamity, and the 

 Tungusian was so much alarmed that he fell seriously ill ; 

 but becoming convalescent, his first idea was the profit he 

 might obtain by selling the tusks of the animal, which 

 were of extraordinary size and beauty. The summer of 

 1802 was less warm and more stormy than usual, and the 

 icy shroud of the Mammoth had scarcely melted at all. 

 At length, towards the end of the fifth year (1803), the 

 desires of the Tungusian were fulfilled ; for, the part of the 

 ice between the earth and the Mammoth having melted 

 more rapidly than the rest, the plane of its support became 

 inclined, and the enormous mass fell by its own weight on 

 a bank of sand. Of this, two Tungusians, who accom- 

 panied Mr. Adams, were witnesses. In the month of 

 March, 1804-, Schumachoff came to his Mammoth, and 

 having cut off the tusks, exchanged them with a merchant, 

 called Bultunoff, for goods of the value of fifty rubles. 

 Two years afterwards, or the seventh after the discovery 



