CflANTB AND PIOMIEg. 



77 



any, that a sfmiliar monster had been formerly seen rn the same 

 peninsula, and that aJl the fnniily of the person who discovered 

 it died soon afterwards. The mammoth was, in consequence, 

 tinanimously considered as an augury of future calamity, and the 

 Tungnsian chief was so much idarmed, that he fell serionsly ill ; 

 but becoming convalescent, his first idea was the profit which he 

 might obtain by selling the tusks of the aninml, which were of 

 extraordinary size and beauty. He ordered that the place 

 where the mammoth ^'as found, should be carefully concealed, 

 and that strangers should, under difl'eront pretexts, be diverted 

 from it, at the same time charging trustworthy people to watch 

 that the treasure was not carried uif. But the summer of 1802, 

 which was less warm and more windy than common, caused the 

 mammoth to remain buiied in the ice, which had scarcely 

 melted at all. At length, toAvards the end the fifth year, 

 (1803), the ardent wishes of Schumachoff were huppily gratified; 

 for the part of the ice between the earth and the mammoth 

 melted more rapidly than the rest, the plane of itn support 

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

 on a bank of sand. Of this, two Tungusians, who accompanied 

 me were witnesses. In the month of March, 1804, Schumachoff 

 came to his mammoth, and having cut off his tnsks, he exchanged 

 them with the merchant Bultanoff for goods of the value of 

 fifty roubles, £S stg. Schumachoff related the history of the 

 discovery to Mr. Adams, Naturalist's Library, Mammalia, Vol. 

 v., 1837, •' Elephant of the Lena." 



48. Two years afterwards or the seventh after the dis- 

 covery of the mammoth, I (Mr. Adams) fortunately traversed 

 these distant and desert regions, and I congratulate myself in 

 being able lo prove a fact which seems so improbable. I found 

 the mammoth still in the same place but altogether mutilated. 

 There wao no obstacle to prevent approach to the carcase of the 

 mammoth ', the proprietor who was my guide, was content with 

 his profit from the tusks and the Jakutski of the neighbourhood 

 had cut off" the flesh with which they fed the dogs during the 

 Bcarcity. Wild beasts, such as white bears, wolves, Avolverines 

 and foxes also fed upon it, and the tracea of their footstepfl 



