The Mammoth and its Epoch. 73 



Siberia, we may assume that the quantity mentioned resulted 

 from the spoils of at least 150 animals, or, making" allowance 

 for young ones and damaged specimens, 200 would be a pro- 

 bable supposition. 



With respect to the date at which these creatures lived, M. 

 de Middendorff observes that the Taimyr specimen was buried 

 under a stratified mass of sand and clay thirty-five feet thick. 

 He could not discover any trace of marine mollusks, but half 

 way up the slope he found a layer of pulverized lignite, one 

 inch thick, mixed with gravel, which indicated a prolonged 

 action of a gentle water current, and was inconsistent with the 

 supposition that the sandbank had been formed by a sudden 

 catastrophe. The presence in the sand, below the mammoth 

 remains, of large pebbles of different mineral characters, seemed 

 to indicate that they had been brought from various localities 

 by blocks of ice, which had deposited them in situations which 

 larger blocks could not reach. 



M. Yon Baer states, that in the Tundra and on the 

 banks of the Taimyr, he noticed that the mammoth remains 

 were always in layers, above the beds composed of sand 

 with pebbles, and he considered the mammoth layers as result- 

 ing from the erosive action of the sea on coasts recently 

 emerged, and in process of elevation ; and he found near the 

 mammoths in some beds marine shells of species still living in 

 the Polar Sea. 



From these facts he concluded that the mammoth lived at 

 an epoch when the climate was pretty much as it is now. 

 Rejecting all ideas of sudden cataclysmal changes, he observed 

 that, if at the eocene epoch the climate was tropical, and if 

 during the formation of the upper miocene beds the majority 

 of the tropical animals and vegetables still existed, and if at 

 that time the mean temperature of the polar circle was many 

 degrees higher than at present, the mammoths cannot be 

 assigned to an earlier epoch than that of the transition between 

 the pliocene and post-pliocene epochs. 



M. Yon Baer does not doubt that the mammoths were 

 contemporaneous with man, and in addition to other evidence, 

 some Chinese traditions point in this direction. 



The most important question concerning mammoths is, 

 whether or not they lived on the coasts of the Polar Sea, 

 which are now destitute of forests, or whether v their remains 

 were carried from the north by rivers descending from the 

 wooded country of Southern Siberia. M. de Middendorff 

 adopts the latter hypothesis, and remarks that while it is not 

 uncommon in Southern Siberia to find remains of animals 

 which seem to have lived on the spot, and to have been 

 engulphed in a standing position, the remains found in the 



