

H; 





vt, 





■ 



soon 

 otU 



a?; 



yws 



rsoi 



idem; 

 and i 



: an 



in the 



wifa 

 bek 





• 





by* 





.tiou 



ocean: 

 artlier- 



hJgHf 



3 





* 



ri'ee 



ft 



Cn. X.] 



AND ITS ASSOCIATES. 



181 



1 titude in South America, we may easily understand how 

 ic rsre species of the same genera may once have inhabited 

 Northern Europe. The mammoth (E. primig enius) , already 

 lluded to, as occurring fossil in England, was decidedly dif- 

 ferent from the two living species of elephants, one of which 

 limited to Asia, south of the 31° of "" 



is 



N. lat., the other to 

 Africa, where it extends, as before stated, as far south as the 

 Cape of Good Hope. The bones of the fossil species are very 

 widely spread over Europe and North America ; but are no- 

 where in such profusion as in Siberia, particularly near the 

 shores of the Frozen Ocean. 



But if we are thence to conclude that this animal 

 preferred a northern climate, it will naturally be asked, 

 by what food was it sustained, and why does it not 

 still survive near the Arctic circle?* Pallas and other 

 writers describe the bones of the mammoth as occurring 

 in a very fresh state throughout all the Lowland of Siberia, 

 stretching in a direction west and east, from the borders of 

 Europe to the extreme point nearest America, from south to 

 north, from lat. 60° and from the base of the mountains of 

 Central Asia to the shores of the Arctic Sea. (See map, fig. 7.) 



scarcely inferior in area to the whole of 

 Europe, fossil ivory has been collected almost everywhere, 

 on the banks of the Irtish, Obi, Yenesei, Lena, and other 

 rivers. The elephantine remains do not occur in the marshes, 

 but where the banks of the rivers present lofty precipices of 

 sand and clay ; from which circumstance Pallas very justly 

 inferred that, if sections could be obtained, similar bones 

 might be found in all the elevated lands intervening between 



the great rivers. Strahlenberg, indeed, had stated, before 



Within 



the time of Pallas, that wherever any of the great rivers over- 

 flowed and cut out fresh channels during floods, 



mor 



same 



them 



companions, MM. de Verneuil and 



Keyserling, in their great work on the 



ri a, and its former fitness as a residence Geology of Russia, 1845 (vol. i. p. 497), 



* The speculations which follow, on 

 the ancient physical geography of Sibe- 



^ the mammoth, were first given in 

 their present form in my 4th edition, 

 June 1835. Sir R. Murchison and his 



have, in citing this chapter, declared 

 that their investigations have led them 

 to similar conclusions. 



