36 REY. D. GATH WHITLEY, ON THE 
Strange as these facts aré we have now to examine some- 
thing still more remarkable, and to consider the extraordinary 
phenomenon of the occurrence of enormous masses of elephants’ 
bones in desolate islands of the Arctic Ocean. In the icy waters 
of the Polar Sea to the north of Siberia, there lie islands which 
are enclosed in ice for the greater portion of the year. Never- 
theless the soil of these desolate islands is absolutely packed 
full of the bones of elephants and rhinoceroses in such 
astonishing numbers, that no places in the whole world contain 
such quantities of elephants’ remains, as do these icy islands in 
the Arctic Sea. The whole records of science contain no stranger 
chapter than that which describes the discovery and position of 
the remains of the Mammoth in the islands in the Arctic 
Ocean. 
It would be difficult to imagine a more dreary expanse of the 
sea than that portion of the Arctic Ocean which lies directly to 
the north of Siberia. For nine months in the year it is 
continually frozen, and during the long winter it seems to be 
abandoned to the spirit of the North Pole. What adds to its 
loneliness also, is the fact that even in summer nearly the 
whole extent of its coast is uninhabited by human beings. 
Nordenskiéld says that, in his voyage along the northern coast 
of Siberia in the Vega during the summer of 1878, he did not 
see a single human being on the shore, in the whole stretch from 
Yue or Schar (at the westernmost point of Siberia) to Cape 
Chelagskoi. In fact it was only when the Vega reached the 
land of the Chukches, in the extreme north-east of Siberia, that 
human inhabitants were seen.* This loneliness of ‘the Siberian: 
coast is in striking contrast to the constant signs of man which 
are met with along the arctic shores of America, where the huts 
of the Eskimo cover the coast, and their boats are constantly 
passing to and fro over the waters. In sailing along the 
Siberian coast neither boats nor houses are seen, and until the 
Jhukche country is reached no signs of man are visible. 
The navigation of the Arctic Ocean to the north of Siberia is, 
in summer, both difficult and dangerous. At that season of the 
year the enormous fields of ice which cover the ocean during 
the winter are indeed broken up, but great masses of ice are 
always drifting to and fro, and these are often of great size, 
although the colossal icebergs which float over the Greenland 
seas are not encountered. Fogs in summer are thick and 
frequent, and render the progress of a vessel slow and difficult, 
* Voyage of the “ Vega,” vol. i, pp. 429, 480. 
