14 Distribution, Food and Climate of the Mammoth. 



I am far from believin 



» 



xternal 



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 

 generally 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 nourish 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, had 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. 



The circumstances of this discovery have been recorded by 

 Mr Adams in the 'Journal du Nord,' printed at Petersburg in 

 180/, and m the 5th volume of the 'Memoirs of the Imperial 

 Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg,' of which an excellent 

 English translation was published in 1819. 



Schumachoff, a Tungusian hunter and collector of fossil ivory, 

 who had migrated in 1799 to the peninsula of Tamut, at the 

 mouth of the river Lena, one day perceived amongst the blocks 

 ot 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- 



J £l °?i, S1 eS? but wlthout bein g able to discover what it was. 

 i He iollowing year he perceived that the mass was more disen- 

 gaged from the blocks of ice, and had two projecting parts. To- 



i™i ^ end ° f the next year ' ( 1801 >) the entire side of the an- 



11X1(11 arifl nrt£> lf« +iir.1m T,ro»n n^U~ fL- .... 1? , ~ , . 



his re- 



