52 FOSSIL MAMMALIA. 



skin, and hair remaining. Since then an elephant was disco- 

 vered on the banks of the Alaseia, a river which flows into the 

 Icy sea beyond the Indigirska. It was in an upright position, 

 was almost entire, covered by its skin, to which some long 

 hairs were still attached. Another fact of this kind is so sur- 

 prising, that it deserves a more detailed account. 



In 1799, a Tongoose fisherman observed, on the borders of 

 the Icy sea, near the mouth of the Lena, in the midst of the 

 fragments of ice, a shapeless mass of something, the nature of 

 which he could not conjecture. The next year he observed 

 that this mass was a little more disengaged. Towards the end 

 of the following summer the entire side of the animal and one 

 of the tusks became distinctly visible. In the fifth year, the 

 ice being melted earlier than usual, this enormous mass was 

 cast upon the coast, upon a bank of sand. The fisherman 

 possessed himself of the tusks, which he sold for fifty rubles. 

 Two years after, Mr. Adams, associate of the academy of St. 

 Petersburgh, who was travelling with Count Golovkin, on an 

 embassy to China, having heard of this discovery at Yakutsk, 

 repaired immediately to the spot. He found the animal already 

 greatly mutilated. The flesh had partly been cut away by 

 the Yakoots for their dogs, and some of it had been devoured 

 by wild beasts. Still the skeleton was entire, with the excep- 

 tion of a fore-leg. The spine of the back, a shoulder-blade, 

 the pelvis, and the rest of the extremities, were still united by 

 the ligaments and a portion of the skin. The other shoulder- 

 blade was found at some distance. The head was covered with 

 a dry skin. One of the ears, in high preservation, was fur- 

 nished with a tuft of hair, and the pupil of the eye was still 

 discernible. The brain was found in the cranium, but in a 

 state of desiccation. The under-lip had been torn, and the 

 upper one being utterly destroyed, left the molars visible. 

 The neck was furnished with a long mane. The skin was 

 covered with black hairs, and with a reddish sort of wool. 

 The remains were so heavy, that ten persons had much diffi- 



