RANGE IN TIME OF THE MAMMOTH. 243 



that it belongs to another extinct form. It is preserved in 

 the Museum of Bologna. With the exception of R. tichor- 

 hinus, the fossil fauna of the Val di Chiana exhibits all the 

 leading forms of the large Ungulata that accompanied the 

 Mammoth in the north of Europe, before its final extinction. 



Passing over the. superficial deposits of Central and North- 

 ern Europe, I shall refer briefly to the Mammoth deposits of 

 Siberia and the Ural mountains. The nature of the accumu- 

 lations of the bones of Elephants and other northern quad- 

 rupeds at the mouths of the Siberian rivers is so well known, 

 through the writings of Pallas and other naturalists and 

 travellers since his time, that it is only necessary to allude 

 to one leading fact, namely, that besides the freshness of 

 condition in which they are preserved, the Siberian Fauna, as 

 a whole, agrees with that of the ' low level gravels ' of the 

 river valleys and ' superficial drift ' of the last stage of the 

 Glacial period in Central Europe, and that it has not yet 

 been shown to contain any of the older extinct species, like 

 the Elephas antiquus, Rhinoceros megarhinus, or Hippopotamus 

 major, which are found along with the early form of the 

 Mammoth, in the pre-glacial ' forest-bed ' of the Norfolk 

 coast, or in the volcanic gravels around Rome. 



The authors of the ' Geology of Russia ' have, in their 

 great work, investigated with much ability the nature and 

 origin of the auriferous gravels, in which Mammoth bones 

 occur on the flanks of the Ural mountains. They infer 

 that the species had existed for a long course of ages upon 

 the adjoining high lands, when the low region now skirting 

 the Polar Sea was submerged ; that the vast quantities of 

 fossil bones found near the mouth of these rivers are the 

 result of the secular accumulation, during a long period, of 

 carcases floated by floods from the highlands into the great 

 estuaries ; and that the last elevations of the Urals, which 

 led to the production of gold veins, were probably the chief 

 causes that conduced to the final destruction of the Mam- 

 moth in Siberia. 1 But the leading general fact, observed 

 with regard to the Siberian fossil fauna, holds equally good 

 of that of the auriferous gravel deposits, of local origin, on 

 the flanks of the Urals : Elephas primigenius, Rhinoceros 

 tichorhinus, Bison priscus, Equus, &c, are the prevailing forms. 

 Not an instance has been adduced of the older associates of 

 the Mammoth, above-mentioned, having been found among 

 these remains. E. primigenius has become extinct in the 

 swamps of North America and in the valley of the Tiber, 

 where auriferous gravels and Ural upheavements had no 



1 Geology of Russia in Europe, &c. p. 492, ct seq. 

 R 2 



