408 H. H. Hoivorth — Cause of the Extinction of the Mammoth. 



eating surroundings, I will first quote Pallas, who, although his 

 views are crude in some respects, was a first-rate observer, and one 

 to whom Natural Science has hardly done sufficient homage. He, 

 of course, postulates, as do his contemporaries, that the Khinoceros 

 and Elephant lived in the south, and was carried north by violent 

 means. His words, speaking of the Rhinoceros of the river Vilui, 

 are : " Itaque tantum hoc videtur stupendum quomodo Rhiuocerotis 

 in Australionibus terris Asiae nati cadaver integrum tanta vehemen- 

 tia atque celeritate per tot mille stadia in arcticas terras transvectum, 

 ibique arena obrutum et conglaciatum fuerit, ut putrefactione partes 

 moUes interea non diffluxerint. Itaque catadrophes tremendae, 

 integrique forte Pelagi Asiam ah Austro ad Boream violentissime 

 trans fluentis argxmnentum probet BJiinocerotis," etc. (Nov. Comm. St. 

 Peter. Acad., 1773, vol. xvii. p. 594). Again, " Si recensitis hucusque 

 observationibus addas magnam copiara ossium Elephanti aliaque 

 exotica crania a Samojedis colligi venumque Beresovam adportari e 

 planitie, quam colunt, vastissima, sylvis denudata, Sibiriaque 

 borealem oram usque in latitudinem sexaginta octo circiter graduum 

 constituentis hanc ipsam vero planitiem monumenta plurima mundantis 

 Pelagi servare . . . Turn quidem fateor, contra opiniones in hac 

 re caeteras omnes maxime verosimile videri ossa subterranea quadru- 

 pedum in Australibus terris natorum que nunc per borealem Asiam 

 sparsa jacent, reliquias esse cadaverum ex australi patria in arcticas 

 usque plagas abreptorum et gravissima forte olim globi terraquei 

 catastrophe suhmersorum. Eamque non solum vere exstitisse sed etiam 

 nolentissimam atque subitaneam fuisse novo atque inaudito argumento 

 probabile reddam " (id. pp. 584-5). 



We will now turn to Erman, a first-rate observer, who has the 

 following remarks : " The ground at Yakutsk . . . consists, to the 

 depth of at least 100 feet, of strata of loam, pure sand, and magnetic 

 sand. They have been deposited from waters which at one time, and 

 it may be presu,med suddenly, overflowed the whole country as far as the 

 Polar Sea. In these deepest strata are found twigs, rocks, and 

 leaves of trees of the birch and willow kinds ; and even the most 

 imbiassed observers would at once explain this condition of the 

 soil by comparing it to the annual formation of new banks and 

 islands by the floods of the Lena at the present time ; for these 

 consist of similar muddy deposits and the spoils of willow banks, 

 but they lie about 110 feet higher than the ground which was 

 covered by those ancient floods. Everywhere throughout these 

 immense alluvial deposits are now lying the bones of antediluvian 

 quadrupeds along with vegetable remains" (op. cit. ii. 378). After the 

 passage about the hoards of birch trees under the tundras and in 

 New Siberia, which I quoted in a previous paper (Geol. Mag., 

 Decade II. Vol. VII. pp. 559-560), Erman goes on to say : 

 " It is only in the lower strata of the New Siberian wood-hills that 

 the trunks have that position which they would assume in swimming 

 or sinking undisturbed. On the summit of the hills they lie flimg 

 upon one another in the wildest disorder, forced upright in spite of 

 gravitation, and with their tops broken off or crushed as if they had 



