HA. H. Howorth—The Mammoth in Siberia. 1553 
perate zone and associated with animals having their present abodes 
near the arctic circle, the further question remains, was it possible 
that these animals could live under the present climatic conditions 
of Siberia, and especially Northern Siberia ? 
I think I may say without hesitation that no inquirer, no student 
of this question, who has either himself been in Siberia, or who 
knows what the conditions of a*Northern Siberian climate are, has 
ever answered this question affirmatively. Pallas, Middendorf, 
Baer, Brandt, Schmidt, Schrenck, etc., all are agreed on this, that the 
vast herds of Mammoths and the associated animals could not live 
in Northern Siberia under its present conditions. It needs but a 
very cursory examination of a physical map of Asia to show this. 
If we draw an isotherm marking the present southern limit in 
Siberia where the ground is permanently frozen all the year round, 
at two or three feet below the surface, we shall find it to include not 
only all the district in which Mammoths’ bodies have been found 
more or less intact, but all the chief deposits of their bones, and if 
we inquire what kind of climate there is within this zone, we shall 
not hesitate very long in our answer. ‘Travellers are agreed that the 
ground is perpetually frozen from two to three feet below the 
surface in all the country, and we are told the Yakuts merely dig 
holes in the frozen ground as meat safes (Tilesius, op. cit. 429). 
At Dudimo, on the Lower Yenissei, Schmidt says vegetation-does 
not begin to appear till the 16th of June, when the catkins of the 
willow and some green Jeaves began to thrust upwards through the 
snow, on the Yenissei islands and the Tundra he noticed no green 
till July, when the Salix lanata appeared, followed by Nardosima 
frigida and Chrysosplenium alternifolium. On the Tundra in the 
neighbourhood of the Jyda, the summer lasted from the 15th of 
July to the 5th of August. Even during this interval, he says in 
another place, there were constant north winds and frost at nights, 
while the land was covered with snow on the 28th of June through 
which the young shoots were appearing. 
At the other end of Siberia, we find Billings describing the 
Chukchi land as consisting of bare valleys and naked hills with no 
vegetation, except a scanty, grey moss that springs from among the 
stones, and serves as food for the Reindeer. Only in a few valleys 
did he observe a few stunted sand willows. The climate, he says, 
is the most melancholy that can be conceived; before the 20th of 
June there is no symptom of summer, and on the 20th of August 
the winter sets in again” (Wrangell, cxiii). 
Speaking of the district: of the Lower Kolyma, Wrangell says: 
“The vegetation of summer is scarcely more than a struggle for 
existence. In the latter end of May the stunted willow bushes put 
out little wrinkled leaves, and those banks which slope towards the 
south become clothed with a serene verdant hue. In June, the tem- 
perature at noon attains 72°; the flowers show themselves, and the 
berry-bearing plants blossom, when sometimes an icy blast from the 
sea turns the verdure yellow, and destroys the bloom. . . . Winter 
so called prevails during nine months of the year. In October the 
