554 H. H.. Howorth—The Mammoth in Siberia. 
cold is somewhat mitigated by thick fogs and by the vapour rising 
from the freezing sea; but in November the great cold begins, and 
in January increases to — 65°. Then breathing becomes difficult ; the 
wild Reindeer, that citizen of the Polar region, withdraws to the 
deepest thicket of the forest, and stands there motionless as if 
deprived of life... As the sun returns, the cold becomes even 
more sensible, and the intensity of the frost which accompanies the 
rising of the sun in February and March is especially penetrating” 
(id. 48 and 49). 
The larger portion of North Siberia is now a naked tundra, on 
which no tree will grow; swept by terrible icy winds, and covered 
with moss, sprinkled with a few humble flowers, on such feeding 
eround it is physically impossible, as has been well said, that 
Elephants and Rhinoceroses could exist. They cannot graze close 
to the ground like oxen. They live on the foliage and small 
branches of trees, and on juicy canes and long grass (which grows 
shoulder high in the jungles and the beds of African rivers), and 
would starve even on one of our Craven pastures where the grass is. 
close. This even in summer, but how in winter, which practically 
lasts for ten months in the year, when the tundra is covered deep 
with snow, and the terrible north wind sweeps across and makes it 
impossible for any but a very few singularly constituted animal to 
survive it? If we turn from the tundras to the rivers which thread 
them, we shall find that the limit of trees certainly goes further 
north in the river valleys than on the tundra, but only a compara- 
tively short distance, and near the mouths of the Lena, the Obi, and 
the Yenissei, where such multitudes of Mammoths’ remains have 
been found, there are no trees and no shrubs, but a bare waste; 
for the greater part of the year covered with snow, and for three or 
four weeks furnishing a slight covering of green, while the rivers 
themselves are for many months frozen hard to the depth of several 
feet, and everything everywhere is covered with thick snow. 
Suppose that the Mammoths could outlive this terrible climate, 
a more important question remains how they were to find food. 
There is absolutely nothing here for them to eat in the winter, while 
in the summer the only herbage is such as they could not pasture. 
In this dilemma there seem to be only two alternatives, either to 
postulate a huge migration north and south as the seasons changed, 
or to postulate a change of climate. J do not wish to encumber this 
paper with any questions that may arise elsewhere than in Siberia, 
but to limit myself strictly to that district. There, a migration such 
as is referred to is perfectly inadmissible. In the first place, as we 
have tried to show, even in summer a large part of the district 
where the Mammoths are found is quite unsuited to their mode of 
feeding, and neither in quantity nor in quality of food could they 
supply their wants, they must inevitably starve. So that to come 
there in summer would be to migrate to a practical desert. For we 
must remember it is not a question of finding food for a sporadic — 
pachyderm or two, but for enormous herds, whose hecatombs we 
have described. Again, if we consider the configuration of Siberia, 
