ELEPHAS PRIMIGENIUS. 269 



progress by a condition to which the Rein-deer and Musk 

 Ox are not subject, viz., the limits of arboreal vegetation, 

 which, however, as represented by the dominating shrubs 

 of Polar lands, would allow them to reach the seventieth 

 degree of latitude.* But with this limitation, if the phy- 

 siological inferences regarding the food of the Mammoth 

 from the structure of its teeth be adequately appreciated 

 and connected with those which may be legitimately de- 

 duced from the ascertained nature of its integument, the 

 necessity of recurring to the forces of mighty rivers, hurry- 

 ing along a carcass through a devious course, extending 

 through an entire degree of latitude, in order to account for 

 its ultimate entombment in ice, whilst so little decomposed 

 as to have retained the cuticle and hair, will disappear. 

 And it can no longer be regarded as impossible for herds 

 of Mammoths to have obtained subsistence in a country 

 like the southern part of Siberia where trees abound, not- 

 withstanding it is covered during a great part of the year 

 with snow, seeing that the leafless state of such trees 

 during even a long and severe Siberian winter, would not 

 necessarily unfit their branches for yielding sustenance to 

 the well-clothed Mammoth. 



With regard to the extension of the geographical range 

 of the Elephas primigenius into temperate latitudes the dis- 

 tribution of its fossil remains teaches that it reached the 

 fortieth degree north of the equator. History, in like 

 manner, records that the Rein-deer had formerly a more 

 extensive distribution in the temperate latitudes of Europe 

 than it now enjoys. The hairy covering of the Mammoth 



* In the extreme points of Lapland, in 70 north latitude, the pines attain 

 the height of sixty feet ; and at Enontekessi, in Lapland in 68 30' north lati- 

 tude, Von Buck found corn, orchards, and a rich vegetation, at an elevation of 

 1356 feet above the sea. Lindley, Intr. to Botany, pp. 485, 490. 



