D2 REV. D. GATH WHITLEY, ON THE 
bottom some fragments of mammoths’ tusks, which confirmed 
the statements of the ivory hunters, and showed that there must 
be immense deposits of elephants’ bones, under the sea, at this 
place.* It has also been remarked that the land of the North 
Siberian coast is rapidly rising, and that fresh sandbanks are 
being constantly laid bare. Between the New Siberian Islands 
and the mainland the sea is very shallow, averaging only from 
10 to 15 fathoms in depth, and the bottom is composed of green 
mud. As this is the case, we may expect that fresh deposits of 
mammoths’ tusks, will, from time to time, be exposed, and the 
supply of fossil ivory from the islands in the Siberian Arctic 
Ocean will continue for a long time. 
It is a curious fact, that the tusks of the mammoths which 
are found in the New Siberia Islands are much whiter and 
much better preserved, than those found on the mainland. It 
has also been observed that the tusks from the islands are 
much smaller than those discovered on the mainland.t Nor- 
denskidld explains this smallness in size of the tusks from the 
islands, by supposing that these tusks belonged to younger 
mammoths, which being more agile, and more troubled with 
flies, went farther north than those which were older.t This is 
very improbable, for very large mammoths’ tusks have been 
found on the mainland of Siberia, nearly as far north as Cape 
Chelyuskiu, and this promontory is farther to the north than 
the Liakoff and New Siberian Islands. 
East of the Liakoff Islands, and close off the mouth of the 
Kolyma, near to the shore, lie the Bear Islands. They are six 
or seven in number, and are of insignificant size. They were 
often seen by the fur-hunters and voyagers in the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries; and they were thoroughly surveyed, 
by Wrangell in 1821-22. He has described them in detail, 
and says that in one of them numbers of mammoths’ bones are 
found in the earthy soil.§ On one of these islands he discovered 
four great pillars of granite, naturally formed, the highest of 
which was 48 feet in height. He called the island Four-Pillar 
Island ; according to N ordenskidld it is also called Lighthouse 
Island. 
The easternmost of the Mammoth Islands is Wrangell 
Land, which has had a singular history. In 1763 Andrejew 
Voyage of the “Vega,” vol. i, p. 420. 
Wrangell’s Siberia and the Polar Sea, pp. 499, 500. 
Voyage of the “ Vega,” vol. i, pp. 412, 413. 
Wrangell, p. 154. 
Gir + + * 
