ICE-CLIFFS OF ESCHSCHOLTZ BAY. 427 



fossil remains found in them, proceeds to say that " where the permanently 

 frozen subsoil exists it is a perfect ice-cellar, and preserves from destruction 

 the bodies of animals completely enclosed in it. By its intervention entire 

 carcasses of the extinct mammoth and tichorhine rhinoceros have been 

 handed down in Arctic Siberia from the drift period to our times, and, being 

 exposed by landslips, have revealed most interesting glimpses of the fauna 

 of that remote epoch. Conjecture fails in assigning a chronological date to 

 the time when the drift and boulders were spread extensively over the 

 northern hemisphere ; . . . and we merely judge from the absence of 

 works of art and of human bones, that the drift era must have been ante- 

 cedent to the appearance of man upon earth, or at least to his multiplication 

 within the geographical limits of the drift. Whatever may be our specula- 

 tions concerning the mode in which the carcasses in question were enclosed 

 in frozen gravel or mud, their preservation to present times, in a fresh condi- 

 tion, indicates that the climate was a rigorous one at the epoch of their en- 

 tombment, and has continued so ever since. . . . The ' St Petersburg Trans- 

 actions ' and other works contain accounts of the circumstances attending the 

 discovery of the entire carcasses of a rhinoceros and of two mammoths in Arctic 

 Siberia, and one cannot avoid regretting that they were beyond the reach of 

 competent naturalists, who might, by examining the contents of the stomach, 

 the feet, external coverings, and other important parts, have revealed to us 

 much of the habits of these ancient animals, and of the nature of the country 

 in which they lived. ... In Arctic America such remains have been dis- 

 covered in its north-western corner alone, and as yet, bones, horns, and hair 

 only have been obtained, without any fresh muscular fibre ; but all the col- 

 lectors describe the soil from which they were dug as exhaling a strong and 

 disagreeable odour of decomposing animal matter, resembling that of a well- 

 filled cemetery. In August 1816, Kotzebue, Chamisso, and Eschscholtz 

 discovered, in the bay Avhich now bears the name of the last-mentioned 

 naturalist, some remarkable cliffs, situated a short way southward of the 

 Arctic circle, and abounding in the bones of mammoths, horses, oxen, and 

 deer. The cliffs were described by these discoverers as pure icebergs, one 

 hundred feet high, and covered with soil, on which the ordinary Arctic 

 vegetation flourished. These novel circumstances strongly excited the 

 attention of the scientific world; and when Captain Beechey and his 

 accomplished surgeon. Collie, ten years later, visited the same place, their 

 best efforts were made to ascertain the true nature of the phenomenon. Dr 

 Buckland drew up an account of the fossil remains then procured, with 

 illustrative plates, and Captain Beechey published a plan of the locality." 

 Captain Beechey, however, considers that the ice of these cliffs is merely a 

 facing, and that the cliffs consisted mainly of frozen mud ; but " after an 

 interval of twenty-four years," continues Dr Richardson, " the recent voyage 



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