IVORY ISLANDS IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN. 5D 
There are serious objects to this conclusion. The islands off the 
coast of north-eastern Siberia, are full of delicate granite spires 
and pinnacles, which would have been destroyed had an ice- 
sheet passed over them. Nordenskidld declares that along the 
whole of the northern coast of Siberia he could discover no 
erratics or glacial traces, and uses these emphatic words, “to 
judge by the appearance of the hills there have not been any 
glaciers in former times, and this is certainly the case on the 
mainland. The northernmost part of Asia in that case has 
never been covered by such an ice-sheet as is assumed by the 
supporters of a general ice-age embracing the whole globe.’* 
And again he remarks, dealing with the same question: “ It 
may perhaps be uncertain whether a true inland-ice covered the 
whole country; it is certain that the ice-cap did not extend 
over the plains of Siberia, where it can be proved that no ice- 
age in a Scandinavian sense ever existed.” f 
Summing up all the results of exploration of the remarkable 
islands in the Arctic Ocean to the north of Siberia, which 
contain such numerous remains of the mammoth, we are 
compelled to conclude, that formerly, and speaking geologically 
in recent times, the regions north of Siberia enjoyed a milder 
climate than they possess now. In those days, which were 
since the appearance of man on the earth, although probably 
before man had forced his way into northern Siberia, the 
country had a different aspect and outline from that which 
now characterises it. At that time a great tract of country 
must have extended from the mouth of the Lena to the New 
Siberian Islands, and it stood at a considerable level above the 
sea, while the islands which now exist in the ocean in that 
region formed upland districts and mountain ranges. This 
ancient land was covered with forests, and was traversed by the 
great Siberian rivers. Vast herds of elephants, rhinoceroses, 
musk-oxen, aud buffaloes roamed over the grassy plains and 
wandered amidst the forests, and for long they enjoyed a 
peaceful and secure home. A great catastrophe at last overtook 
them. The land in the extreme north of Siberia, sank beneath 
the waters of the Polar Sea. As the waters rose higher and 
higher, the animals crowded to the uplands for safety, and 
congregated in enormous uumbers on the mountain tops. The 
land, however, continued to sink, and the waters rose higher 
* Voyage of the “ Vega,” vol. i, p. 418. 
+ Lbid., vol. ii, p. 246. 
