544 



UNGULATES. 



without some such explanation, the mode of entombment remains a complete 

 puzzle. In Europe the mammoth seems to have made its first appearance before 

 the great cold of the glacial period ; a fact, which so far as it goes, is in favour of 

 Sir H. Howorth's view, as tending to show that the creature never inhabited a very 

 cold climate. 



Numerous finds of frozen carcases of mammoths in the soil of Siberia have 

 been recorded ; but it may be pretty safely asserted, that these form only a small 

 proportion of those which have been brought to light by the action of the weather 

 during the historic period. Of the recorded examples, almost the earliest is one 

 found on the river Alasega in the year 1787 ; and somewhere about the same time 

 another appears to have been discovered at the mouth of the Lena : while a third 

 occurred in 1805 on the shores of the Polar Sea. The most celebrated of the earlier 

 finds is, however, the one recorded by the naturalist Adams, in 1806, which had 

 been disclosed by the gradual melting of the ice on a peninsula at the mouth of 

 the Lena. The first indication of this carcase was noticed by a native in the year 

 1799, who observed a hummocky mass in the ice, which melted in the summer of 

 1801 sufficiently to show one tusk and the side of the monster. The carcase was 

 then entire, showing the eyes and trunk well preserved, and the thick coat of wool 

 and hair clothing the skin. During the cold summer of 1802 the ice melted little, 

 but in the following year the carcase slid down on to a sandbank ; and in 1804 a 

 native hacked out and carried off both tusks. It was not till two years later, that 

 Adams arrived on the scene ; by which time the dogs of the yakuts had consumed 

 nearly all the flesh, while one limb had been removed bodily. The rest of the 

 skeleton, together with a large amount of hair, were, however, taken to St. Peters- 

 burg, where they are now preserved. 



Another mammoth-mummy was discovered in 1840 on a tributary of the 

 Yenisei, and its skeleton taken to the Museum at Moscow. Some long stiff hair, 

 of a reddish colour, found with this specimen, probably belonged to the mane ; the 

 existence of such a mane having been proved by the rough sketches made by the 

 yakuts of Adams's specimen. A half-grown mammoth, with part of the skin 

 remaining, was discovered in 1843 near the river Tain^r, only a comparatively short 

 distance from the Polar Sea, in 1843. Some time between 1840 and 1850, a well- 

 preserved carcase was discovered in the circle of Yakutsk, on the banks of the 

 river Kolyma. It had a long mane, extending from the head to the tail : and 

 fragments of twigs, on which the animal had been browsing shortly before its 

 death, were found between its teeth. 



Between 1860 and 1862 the yakuts discovered another frozen carcase on a 

 tributary of the Lena ; and an expedition from St. Petersburg, which unfortunately 

 arrived too late, was despatched to secure the prize. The summer 1867 revealed 

 another of these frozen carcases, this time near the Polar Sea in the neighbourhood 

 of the River Alasega, and some distance beyond the northern limit of trees. About 

 the same time news arrived of the discovery of a mammoth on the river Kolyma ; 

 while a third was discovered in 1870 near the Alasega. 



These isolated finds of frozen carcases give no idea of the number of mammoths 

 that inhabited Siberia at a time when its climate must apparently have been far 

 less rigorous than at present ; and in order to obtain some adequate conception on 



