Correspondence — Mr. H. H. Hoioorth. 571 



occurrence has been recorded, the word occasional seems misplaced. 

 It seems in fact clear, from the frequency and dispersal of the 

 carcases, that their occurrence is according to some law, and not 

 according to mere local circumstance ; for the conditions in which 

 they are found are the same over 120 degrees of longitude. 



Mr. Eeid says the plants found with the Mammoth do not show 

 a warm climate. As the same trees and the same land shells have 

 been found with the Mammoth in Germany and in Northern 

 Siberia, it shows a climate consistent with the possible climatic con- 

 ditions of Germany in Post-Glacial times — a climate inconsistent 

 altogether with permanently frozen ground close to the surface over 

 a whole continent, or with winter conditions such as no large 

 herbivores could contend with. The problem further requires that 

 over the whole of Northern Asia the climate should once have been 

 so temperate and mild that the bodies of the Mammoth, etc., could 

 be thrust into the ground or covered with it, and that afterwards, 

 and from the time they were so thrust in, that same ground must 

 have remained hard frozen to our own day. On this condition only 

 could the flesh be preserved. If this were a mere local matter 

 affecting one small area, we might invoke local causes like the case 

 of Mount Etna, but the case is a continental one. The Bear Islands, 

 where no shrub can exist at all 150 miles away from the mouth of 

 the Lena, the occasional home of the Arctic Fox and the Snowy Owl, 

 must, when the Mammoth lived, have supplied an abundant vegeta- 

 tion even in winter ; so must the whole of that terribly inclement 

 district the Peninsula of the Chuktchi ; so must the tundras from the 

 Yenissei to the Lena ; and yet immediately the animals died the 

 ground must have been so frozen for several feet below the surface 

 as to be impervious both to the sun's heat and to the filtration of 

 water. I never urged that the state of things existing now at 

 Yakutsk, where it is probable the ground is permanently frozen for 

 600 feet from the surface, was created suddenly. It is no doubt the 

 result of many centuries of hard climatic conditions. The presence 

 of beds of blue ice alternating with clay and soil, and due probably 

 to some unexplained filtration of water, is no doubt also the resalt of 

 a long process ; but what I urge, and have always urged, and have 

 had my opinion confirmed by the views of many scientific men with 

 whom I have discussed the problem, is that the Mammoth, when 

 alive, must have been surrounded with temperate conditions and 

 abundant food, while directly after he died Arctic conditions must 

 have at once supervened and prevented the decay of his body. The 

 proofs of this position, which seems to me to be more impregnable 

 with every fresh piece of evidence, are cumulative. I have tried to 

 present a number of them as fairly as I could. As yet I have stated 

 but half my case. However, I hope my good friend Dr. Woodward, 

 who has been very considerate to my heresies, will allow me to 

 present the remaining evidence, which is more purely geological. 

 I must emphatically say that I very much distrust all deductive 

 methods in science. The formulating of a very plausible plea of 

 uniformity as an infallible dogma, and then reading one's facts 



