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of 





and 



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tin 







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'11 Of 



lit 



ea! 

 able 



hern 

 near 



r six 

 rfore. 



00001 



rivers 



:nesei 

 ) that 



lifall 



ards 



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Ch. X. J 



AND ITS ASSOCIATES 



1 8 



oce an ? until at length they become buried in fluviatile and 



mouths 



Humboldt remarks, that near the mouths of the Lena a 

 considerable thickness of frozen soil may be found at all 

 seasons at the depth of a few feet ; so that if a carcass be once 



mud 



such a 



Mr. Hedenstr 



climate its putrefaction maybe arrested for indefinite ages.* 

 According to Prof. Von Baer of St. Petersburg, the ground 

 is now frozen permanently to the depth of 400 feet at the 

 town of Yakutzk, on the western bank of the^ Lena, in lat. 62° 

 # 600 miles distant from the Polar Sea. 

 tells us that, throughout a wide area in Siberia, the boundary 

 cliffs of the lakes and rivers consist of alternate layers of 

 earthy materials and ice, in horizontal stratification ; t and 

 Mr Middendorf told me in 1846, that, in his tour there three 

 years before, he had bored in Siberia to the depth of seventy 

 feet and, after passing through much frozen soil mixed with 

 ice 'had come down upon a solid mass of pure transparent 

 ice' the thickness of which, after penetrating two or three 

 yards, they did not ascertain. 



informed me 



Amei 



by many herbivorous quadrupeds, the drift snow is oiten con- 

 verted into permanent glaciers. 



comm 



the edges of steep cliffs, so as to form an inclined talus hun- 

 dreds of feet high ; and when a thaw commences, torrents rush 

 from the land, and throw down from the top of the cliff allu- 

 vial soil and gravel. This new soil soon becomes covered with 



om 



of the sun. Water occasionally penetrates into the crevices 

 and pores of the snow ; but, as it soon freezes, it serves 



mass 



It may sometimes happen that cattle grazing in a valley at 

 the base of such cliffs, on the borders of a sea or river, may 



overwhelmed 



Or a 



ice, and then transported towards the polar regions. 



* Humboldt, Fragmens Asiatiques, ternaire, who cites Observ. but la Si- 

 tom. ii. p. 393. berie, Bibl. Univ., Juillet 1832. 



t Reboul, Geol. de la Periode Qua- 



