/ 
H. H. Howorth—The Mammoth in Siberia. 559 
Schmidt, in another letter, reports that he was told by a native 
of Heligoland, named Bolting, who had lived for twenty years at 
Yenisseisk, that at Dudimo, just at the limit of the woods, he had seen 
in a miserable larch wood, the lower part of a stem sticking in the 
ground apparently rooted, which was three feet in diameter (Mems. 
St. Peters. Acad. ser. vi. vol. v. p. 295-296). 
Turning from Western to Eastern Siberia, we find Hedenstrom, 
who crossed the Tundra from the Indigerka to Ulsiank in 1810, 
saying, “On the Tundra, equally remote from the present line of 
forest, among the steep sandy banks of the lakes and rivers, are 
found large birch trees, complete, with bark, branches, and roots. 
At the first glance they appear to have been well preserved by the 
earth, but on digging them up they are found to be in a thorough 
state of decay. On being lighted they glow, but never emit a flame; 
nevertheless, the inhabitants of the neighbourhood use them as fuel, 
and designate these subterranean trees as Adamovshtshina, or of 
Adam’s time. The first living birch tree is not found nearer than 
three degrees to the north, and then only in the form of a shrub” 
(Wrangell, cxxiv). 
On the same journey he says he observed on Lake Chostag, which 
is fourteen versts long and six broad, that every autumn it throws 
up a quantity of bituminous fragments of wood, with which its 
shores in many places are covered to the depth of more than two 
feet. Among these are pieces of a hard transparent resinous sub- 
stance, burning like amber, though without its agreeable perfume. 
It is probably the hardened resin of the larch tree. The Chostag 
Lake is situated 115 versts from the sea, and 80 versts from the 
nearest forest (id.). 
In another place he mentions how, in a cliff from 380 to 385 feet 
high, beyond the Malaya Kuropalasik Vaga, and consisting of ice- 
clay and black earth, he drew out some interspersed roots, and 
found them to be birch, and as fresh as if only just severed from 
the trees. The nearest woods were 100 versts distant. 
Samukof, we are told, found on the island of Kililnoi the skulls 
and bones of Horses, Buffaloes, Oxen, and Sheep in such abundance 
that these animals must formerly have lived there in large herds. 
At present, however, the icy wilderness produces nothing that could 
afford nourishment, nor would they be able to endure the climate. 
Samukof concludes that a milder climate must formerly have pre- 
vailed here, and that these animals may therefore have been con- 
temporary with the Mammoth, whose remains are found in every 
part of the island. Another circumstance, whence he infers a 
change of climate, is the frequent occurrence, here, as well as in the 
island of New Siberia, of large trees partially fossilized (Wrangell, 
CXXix). 
Erdmann says: “It cannot escape notice, that as we go nearer to 
the coast, the deposits of wood below the earth, and also the deposits 
of bones which accompany the wood, increase in extent and 
frequency. Here, beneath the soil of Yakutsk, the trunks of birch 
trees lie scattered, only singly, but on the other hand they form 
