438 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



The Mammoth and the Flood: an attempt to confront the theory 

 of Uniformity with the facts of recent Geology. By Henby 

 H. HowoRTH, M.P., F.S.A., &c. 8vo, pp. 464. London : 

 Sampson Low & Co. 1887. 



Mr. Howorth's lately-published volume, while dealing with 

 exceptionally curious facts, and dealing with them, moreover, 

 fairly on their merits, will be regarded by many as an unorthodox 

 book. In it we find the so-called Mosaic cosmogony referred to 

 as " a collection of Babylonian legends," and Lyell's theory of 

 Uniformity is regarded as an unverified hypothesis which fails 

 to account for the extinction of the Mammoth and the animals 

 which perished with it. But perhaps the most remarkable 

 feature of the work is the evident desire on the part of the 

 writer to " throw cold water " on the Glacial Epoch, and to 

 substitute for the " action of ice " the almost equally powerful 

 " action of gigantic floods," not caused by deluges of rain, but 

 (if we may generalise from the author's conclusions at p. 354 

 with respect to the Pampas of South America) by the sudden 

 elevation of vast mountain ranges. 



A large portion of the book is occupied with an over- 

 whelming array of facts relating to the condition in which the 

 remains of the Mammoth and other monster mammals have 

 been found. Some of these facts are very remarkable. The 

 Mammoth appears to have been a resident in the forests of 

 Siberia and Europe north of the Pyrenees, in an age when pine 

 trees grew on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, and the climate 

 was much milder than it is now. It lived contemporaneously 

 with the mammals now inhabiting those regions, and with 

 others which like it have become extinct, such as the Ehinoceros 

 and Hippopotamus. It was not destroyed by man, nor by 

 beasts of prey, but by a deluge which overwhelmed it and its 

 contemporaries with mud, and which was accompanied by 

 sudden cold, which in some cases froze the carcases before they 

 had time to decompose. During the thousands of years which 

 have elapsed since this catastrophe, the frost has never been 

 relaxed in the high north. Surface-thaws take place every 



