Dec. 29, 1881] 
larches (Larix sibirica), which seldom reach a height of 
more than seven to ten metres, and which much less de- 
serve the name of trees than the luxuriant alder bushes 
which grow nearly 2° farther north. But some few miles 
south of this place, and still far north of the Arctic Circle, 
the pine forest becomes tall. Here begins a veritable 
forest, the greatest the earth has to show, extending with 
little interruption from the Ural to the neighbourhood of 
the Sea of Ochotsk, and from the fifty-eighth or fifty- 
ninth degree of latitude to far north of the Arctic Circle, 
that is to say, about one thousand kilometres from north 
to south, and perhaps four times as much from east to 
NATURE 
2 
03 
west. It is a primeval forest of enormous extent, nearly 
untouched by the axe of the cultivator, but at many 
laces devastated by extensive forest fires. 
“On the high eastern bank of the Yenisej the forest 
begins immediately at the river bank. It consists prin- 
cipally of pines: the cembra pine (Pzzus Cemébra, L ), 
valued for its seeds, enormous larches, the nearly awl- 
formed Siberian pine (Pinus szbirica, Ledeb.), the fir 
(Pinus obovata, Turcz.), and scattered trees of the com- 
mon pine (Pzzus sylvestris, L.). Most of these already 
north of the Arctic Circle reach a colossal size, but in 
such a case are often here, far from all forestry, grey and 
Fic. 9.—Notti and his wife Aitanga. 
half-dried up with age. Between the trees the ground is 
so covered with fallen branches and stems, only some of 
which are fresh, the others converted into a mass of 
wood-mould held together only by the bark, that there 
one willingly avoids going forward on an unbroken path. 
If that must be done, the progress made is small, and 
there is constant danger of breaking one’s bones in the 
labyrinth of stems. Nearly everywhere the fallen stems 
are covered, often concealed, by an exceedingly luxuriant 
bed of mosses, while on the other hand tree-lichens, pro- | 
bably in consequence of the dry inland climate of Siberia, | 
occur sparingly. The pines, therefore, want the shaggy 
covering common in Sweden, and the bark of the 
birches which are seen here and there among the 
pines is distinguished by an uncommon blinding white 
| ness.” 
After parting with the Zea the Vega made for the 
New Siberian Islands, of great interest to science on 
| account of the abundant remains of the extinct mammoth 
| found thereon. ‘We know by the careful researches of 
| the Academicians Pallas, von Baer, Brandt, von Midden- 
| dorf, Fr. Schmidt, &c., that the mammoth was a peculiar 
northern species of elephant with a covering of hair, 
which, at least during certain seasons of the year, lived 
under natural conditions closely resembling those which 
| now prevail in middle and even in northern Siberia, The 
Fic. 10.—Reconstructed form of the sea-cow. 
widely extended grassy plains and forests of North Asia 
were the proper homeland of this animal, and there it 
must at one time have wandered about in large herds.” 
The mammoth remains the Baron shows are derived 
from a gigantic animal form, living in former times in 
nearly all the lands now civilized, and whose carcase is not 
yet everywhere completely decomposed. Hence the great 
and intense interest which attaches to all that concerns 
this wonderful animal (Fig. 8). 
Baron Nordenskidld then gives an interesting account 
of all the leading mammoth finds from the earliest period 
down to the present day. Portions of skeletons of other 
animal forms have been found in considerable numbers 
| in the New Siberian Islands, and also certain remarkable 
| wood-hills,” highly enigmatical as to their mode of 
formation. 
“ These hills are sixty-four metres high, and consist of 
| thick horizontal sandstone beds alternating with strata of 
fissile bituminous tree stems, heaped on each other to the 
| top of the hill. In the lower part of the hill the tree stems 
| lie horizontally, but in the upper strata they stand upright, 
though perhaps not rootfast.!_ The flora and fauna of the 
island group besides are still completely unknown, and the 
fossils, among them ammonites with exquisite pearly lustre, 
t Hedenstrém, doc. eit. p. 128. To find stranded driftwood in an upright 
! position is nothing uncommon. 
