IVORY ISLANDS IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN. o7 
Note By Proressor Hutt, F.RS. 
Having read with interest Mr. Whitley’s Essay, I wish to add a 
few remarks thereon. I think the facts he relates regarding the 
observations of the navigators who have visited the region north of 
the coast of Siberia justify the author in the conclusion that at the 
time when the mammoth inhabited this region the climate must have 
been much milder than at the present time—in order to admit of 
the growth of trees and vegetation for the sustenance of these huge 
pachyderms and ruminants. It is also shown that the sea-bed 
surrounding the Siberian Islands was in the condition of land over 
which these animals roamed, and is only covered by shallow water 
at the present time ; the submerged land around the islands forms a 
portion of the “ great continental platform ”—determined by Dr. F. 
Nansen (Bathymetrical Features of the North Polar Sea, 1904)—which 
extends outward from the coast of Europe and Asia, and breaks off 
at a depth of about 100 fathoms, at which depth the land descends 
rapidly to depths of 1,000 fathoms or more, a depth which may be 
presumed to extend under the pole, forming a deep polar basin 
covered by ice. The conditions described by the author lead us to 
infer a great upheaval of the sea-bed during the ‘mammoth 
period,” followed by subsidence resulting in the destruction of the 
mammoth and rhinoceros, and here a difficulty presents itself, for 
elevation might have been supposed to result in a climate of increased 
cold, rather than one which appears to have been almost temperate, 
and this difficulty is increased when we suppose that the elevation of 
the sea-level would have produced a barrier between Iceland and 
Norway sufficient to prevent the entrance of the Gulf Stream and 
cause it to be diverted southwards. The conditions of the Arctic 
Ocean, as determined by Nansen, are described in a paper read 
before the Institute (Jowrnal of Transactions, vol. xxxvii, p. 214, 
with map) to which the reader is referred.* 
* For further discussion of the interesting questions raised in this 
paper see The Mammoth and the Flood, by Sir Henry Howorth, K.C.I1.E., 
F.R.S., now unfortunately out of print. 
