310 H. S. Eoivorth — Sudden Extinction of the Mammoth. 



fauna and flora, whose focus was the Mediterranean and its borders, 

 and thus the solution of the main problem is here complicated by- 

 subsidiary difficulties. 



Again, Great Britain is marked geologically by an exceedingly 

 broken and dislocated character. This character has no doubt laid 

 bare and disclosed the secrets of its history in a way which is hardly 

 to be matched elsewhere ; but this very fact makes it unsafe to 

 deduce a wide generalization from the local and often sophisticated 

 evidence which it furnishes. For purposes of generalization it is 

 safer and more prudent to sift our evidence when there has been 

 the smallest possible after-dislocation and sophistication. If this be 

 a wise method, — and we take it the question is scarcely arguable, — 

 then it is assuredly the most scientific plan to put Britain and 

 Western Europe aside for a while, and to concentrate our attention 

 upon Siberia ; and when we have found a clue to solve our riddle 

 there, to return with it and explain what is apparently a difficulty 

 nearer home. 



The problem in the present instance peculiarly invites this method 

 of solution, inasmuch as in Northern Siberia the changes which 

 have passed over the country since the disappearance of the Mam- 

 moth have been so slight that the soft tissues of the animal have 

 been preserved intact, while in Britain we for the most part only- 

 meet with its scattered dehris. 



The question we would ask in these few pages is, What is in- 

 volved in, and necessarily follows from, the preservation of whole 

 bodies of Mammoths, with their flesh and other tissues preserved for 

 ages without decay? The question, however awkward it always 

 sounds to the ears of, those who have accepted in its integrity the 

 creed of Uniformity, should clearly not be evaded and left completely- 

 unanswered, as it has been in nearly every modern discussion on the 

 period of the Mammoth. We are bound to candidly look it in the 

 face, untrammelled by a priori prejudices and unbiassed by the 

 particular creed which may be current in a popular school of inquiry. 

 Let us try with due deference to face the difficulty fairly. 



The first thing that seems to follow inevitably from the facts is, 

 that the bodies which are now found intact in the Siberian tundras 

 have remained frozen since they were first entombed. If they had 

 been subject to alternate congelation and melting with the inter- 

 mittent seasons, they would assuredly have long since decayed. An 

 exposure to one summer's sun, to one season's melting, would have 

 induced putrefaction and dissipation. We are not dealing here with 

 animal substances deposited in bogs, and changed into such organic 

 compounds as adipocere, but of flesh so unchanged that it has all the 

 characters of that of animals which have recently died, when examined 

 under the microscope, while it is readily eaten by the wild animals that 

 live on the tundra. The flesh is as fresh as if recently taken out of an 

 Esquimaux cache or a Yakut subterranean meat-safe. There cannot 

 be a moment's doubt that this condition was secured by one cause, 

 and one cause only, namely, that since the bodies were entombed 

 they have been in a state of continuous congelation without a break. 



