14 Distribution, Food and Climate of the Mammoth. 
I am far from believing that such changes in the external world 
were the cause of the ultimate extinction of the Elephas primi- 
genius; but I am convinced that the peculiarities in its ascertain- 
ed organization, are such as to render it quite possible for the ani- 
mal to have existed as near the pole as is compatible with the 
growth of hardy trees or shrubs. The fact seems to have been 
enerally overlooked, that an animal organized to gain its subsist- 
ence from the branches or woody fibre of trees, is thereby render- 
ed independent of the seasons which regulate the development 
of leaves and fruit; the forest food of such a species becomes as 
perennial as the lichens that flourish beneath the winter snows of 
Lapland; and, were such a quadruped to be clothed, like the 
Reindeer, with a natural garment capable of resisting the rigors 
of an arctic winter, its adaptation for such a climate would be 
complete. Had our knowledge of the Mammoth, indeed, been 
restricted, as in the case of almost every other extinct animal, to 
its bones and teeth, it would have been deemed a hazardous spec- 
ulation to have conceived, a priori, that the extinct ancient Ele- 
phant, whose remains were so abundant in the frozen soil of Si- 
beria, been clad, like most existing quadrupeds adapted for 
such a climate, with a double garment of close fur and coarse hair; 
seeing that both the existing species of Elephants are almost na- 
ked, or, at least, scantily provided when young with scattered 
coarse hairs of one kind only. 
The wonderful and unlooked for discovery of an entire Mam- 
moth, demonstrating the arctic character of its natural clothing, 
has, however, confirmed the deductions which might have been 
legitimately founded upon the localities of its most abundant re- 
mains, as well as upon the structure of its teeth, viz., that, like 
the Reindeer and Musk Ox of the present day, it was capable of 
existing in high northern latitudes. 
circumstances of this discovery have been recorded by 
Mr. Adams in the ‘Journal du Nord,’ printed at Petersburg ™ 
1807, and in the 5th volume of the ‘Memoirs of the I 
mouth of the river Lena, one day perceived amongst the blocks 
of ice a shapeless mass, not at all resembling the large pieces of 
floating wood which are commonly found there. To observe it 
nearer, he landed, climbed up a rock, and examined this new ob- 
ject on all sides, but without being able to discover what it was. 
The following year he perceived that the mass was more 
gaged from the blocks of ice, and had two projecting parts. To- 
wards the end of the next year, (1801,) the entire side of the an- 
mal and one its tusks were quite free from the ice. On his fe 
