﻿340 Frof. Milne — Across Europe and Asia. 



The scale on which so much of the masonry of this northern city- 

 has been carried out only finds its counterpart in that of ancient 

 Egypt — massiveness and grandeur are displayed everywhere. 



On the 15th of the month, which was Sunday, I visited the 

 Museum of the Academy of Sciences, my object being to see a 

 skeleton of the Mammoth, the remains of Bytina Stelleri, and some 

 skulls of European Beavers. 



The first of these, the Mammoth, I found, as I had often seen it 

 depicted, standing side by side with the skeleton and a stufi'ed 

 specimen of its modern representative, the Indian Elephant. In 

 these pictures it is shown as a large monster with clubbed feet. Its 

 relations look sensationally small, and the people who are regarding 

 it still smaller. The clubbed feet are an inexplicable puzzle, and 

 totally at variance ^ath the rest of its bony framework and the toe- 

 joints of its neighbours. In reality I did not find the imposing- 

 appearance which I had anticipated from picture studies. The room 

 in which the skeleton has been placed is one that, if the creature were 

 alive, it would find it, I believe, impossible to walk out of. It is 

 neither high nor broad, has a dull gloomy appearance, and is piled 

 up with many other remains. A lofty clear well-lighted apartment 

 would greatly help in giving visitors a conception of the magnificent 

 proportions of this ancient Elephant. As it is, they are presented to 

 the framework of an animal so reared across a room that its tail 

 almost touches one wall and its head the other. 



On several parts of the skeleton, especially about the skull and 

 hind feet, integument is still existing. There is also a covering on 

 the right fore-foot, on which there is some thick red hair more than 

 two inches long. The left fore-limb, if I remember rightly, and also 

 the corresponding hind-limb are both cast from plaster, as also, I 

 believe, many of the ribs. These feet, which have been cast to 

 imitate the right fore-foot and its covering of integument, have given 

 the club-footed apjDearance to the skeleton which is so often drawn 

 without explanation. Several pieces of integument which belonged 

 to this animal, from f of an inch to more than 1^ inches in thick- 

 ness, are to be seen in the room, and also a fore-foot covered 

 with skin half-way up the leg. The hair with which this creature 

 was covered was like long red horse-hair. Although I siibsequently 

 saw many specimens of the integument of Mammoth covered with 

 hair. I never saw any specimens with wool on them, such as are 

 sometimes spoken of in books. The tusks seem to have belonged to 

 another individual than to the one to which they are now attached, 

 because the stumps to which they are joined are of much larger 

 diameter than the tusks^ themselves. This specimen is one which 

 was discovered on the banks of the Lena in 1799, 



The tusks which are supplied in such large quantities to the 

 London market, to be used as ivory, come chiefly from the shores of 

 the White Sea and the entrance to the Eiver Petchora, where, as 



' See a similar statement, made on the authority of Prof. Maskelyne, Geol. Mag. 

 1868, Vol. V. p. 641, in an article on the curvature of the tusks of the Mammoth. 



