S. H. Soworth — Sudden Extinction of the Mammoth. 311 



This is assuredly the only possible conclusion. It is one which I 

 have urged at different times before the Geological Society, the 

 British Association, and personally to several of my geological 

 friends, of experience much wider in this field of inquiry than my 

 own ; and on all occasions there has been a consensus that what is 

 here urged is inevitable. It is amply supported by other facts ; thus, 

 the northern part of Siberia is at this moment, and has been so far 

 back as our historical records reach, permanently frozen at a few 

 feet from the surface. Below a mere cuticular thawing in the 

 summer, the ground is permanently frozen. About this, which has 

 been doubted by one famous geologist, before whom the problem 

 has been placed, the evidence is complete and overwhelming. Let 

 us see. 



Erman's admirable work on Siberia is an authority beyond 

 question. He says he was assured, when at Yakutsk, on the Lena, 

 that frozen earth is there found near the surface at every season of 

 the year; and that the same condition of the ground continues to the 

 greatest depth hitherto reached. He then goes on to quote an 

 experiment which had recently been made on a large scale, which 

 was quite conclusive of the point. He says Mr. Shergin, who was 

 at the head of the establishment belonging to the American Trade 

 Company, had much desired to have a well within his inclosure, 

 while the other inhabitants of Yakutsk supplied themselves with 

 water in summer from the Lena, and in winter by melting snow. 

 He was at the same time quite convinced of the perpetual congela- 

 tion of the ground, but still hoped to succeed, if the wells could 

 be only dug as deep as they usually are in the governments of 

 Vladimir and Nijni Novgorod. The work was begun at the begin- 

 ning of summer, and continued without interruption to a depth of 

 forty-two feet. But at that time — the warmest part of the year — the 

 strata of fine sand and clays which formed the sides of the shaft were 

 found to be uniformly frozen hard, so that, instead of digging with 

 the spade, it was found necessary to have recourse to the miner's 

 pickaxe. The flakes and frozen pieces of earth in the interior of 

 the well seemed perfectly dry, and they had to be carried up into 

 the warm air and thawed before they gave any signs of moisture. 

 Erman himself descended into the well when it had reached the 

 depth of fifty feet, and buried a thermometer in the ground at the 

 bottom, but never saw the mercury rise above — 6° E. ; and supposing 

 that the increase of heat from the surface to the centre of the earth 

 is as rapid from this point downwards as in other places, we should 

 not expect, he says, to find water in the fluid state till we arrive 

 at the depth of 630 feet, for to that depth the ground is frozen 

 (op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 366-367). Speaking of Aldansk, on the Eiver 

 Aldan, Erman says that the people there told him that even in the 

 warmest months, under sandy soil, and often at a depth of only six 

 feet, layers of solid and transparent ice are found alternating with 

 frozen and dry earth. " This is the same phenomenon," he says, 

 " which I saw near Yakutsk, on the banks of the Lena, and which is 

 also found on the islands in the Icy Sea" (id. p. 423). 



