404 H. U. HoKorth — Cause of the Extinction of the Mammoth. 



the Colorado, the fiords of Norway, the boulders that overspread 

 Finland and Sweden in such profusion and of such magnitude, et id 

 genus omne, were the results of precisely the same forces, hotli in land 

 and degree, that are at present "at work upon the earth. A view 

 which is entirely repudiated by the more judicial authorities beyond 

 our seas, who have not the same close ties with and obligations to 

 Lyell that we have. 



Again, it is the fate of views which have been pressed fanatically 

 on other than merely scientific grounds that they not only cause 

 science to stiffen her upper lip, but that they react in a mischievous 

 way by making scientific men shrink from, if they do not repudiate, 

 perfectly legitimate modes of argument, and classes of evidence 

 which have been perverted to merely polemical purposes. Because 

 the universal deluge was once insisted upon by the partizans of 

 theology, and was as stoutly opposed by science as being utterly at 

 issue with the evidence, therefore any form of diluvial movement 

 on a large scale, in comparatively recent times, aroused the suspicion 

 and antagonism of those who were afraid the cloven hoof might at 

 any moment be thrust forward. 



Again, because theology quoted as infallible, certain documents 

 containing early traditions of the Semitic race, and endeavoured to 

 parry the conclusions of logic by an appeal to what transcends logic, 

 therefore it became the fashion to treat this kind of evidence as 

 entirely illegitimate, to evade conclusions derived from the fact 

 that, in widely separated areas, a common tradition of a common 

 catastrophe of some kind had survived the disintegrating influences 

 of time, and to argue as if this was utterly worthless evidence, and 

 to be thrust aside entirely in favour of empirical testimony. As a 

 good friend of mine, well known to your readers, said to me, " If I 

 cleave a boulder and find a fish with every detail preserved in its 

 midst, I call that evidence." The other, he strongly implied, is mere 

 dreaming. It is time a more judicial attitude was adopted towards 

 this kind of evidence, and we purpose quoting it in what follows. 

 Let us, however, to our task. What then was the proximal cause 

 of the Extinction of the Mammoth ? The first piece of evidence we 

 shall quote is of a singularly direct kind, and we owe it to the 

 ingenious and experienced skill of Professor Brandt. His observa- 

 tions are so interesting and important that they should be quoted in 

 the original words. He says : " Bei der genauen Untersuchung des 

 Kopfes des Bhinoceros iicJi. vom Wilui war ferner auffallend, dass 

 die aufgefundenen Blutgefasse, die aus seinem innern genommen 

 wurden, bis zu den Capillargeftissen mit brauner Masse (Blnt- 

 gerinnsel) augefiillt erschienen, die an manchen Stellen noch die 

 rothe Blutfarbe zeigte. Ich konnte bei der Wahrnehmung der so 

 stark mit Resten der Blutkiigelchen angefiillten Kopfgefiisse den 

 Gedanken nicht unterdriicken, das das Individuum, dem sie angehor- 

 ten durch die vermuthlich wahrend des Ersaufens entstandene 

 Asphyxie sein Lebensende gefunden haben diirfte" (Proceedings of 

 the Berlin Academy, 1846, page 223). 



These very interesting observations of a most careful and com- 



