Habitation and Destruction of the Mammoths. 439 



from the extinct, we leave it to naturalists to say, whether, under cir- 

 cumstances of great and probably sudden change of land and water ; 

 and other difficulties dependent on a limited subsistence, the Aurochs 

 or Zubr of Lithuania was not, from his activity and hardy habits, more 

 likely to have survived such oscillations, than his unwieldy associates, 

 the mammoth, mastodon, and rhinoceros. 



In terminating the subject of the entombment and dispersion of 

 the great races of Mammalia, we may remind our readers, that in our 

 endeavours to point out the ancient physical geographical features of 

 the Ural Mountains, and the adjacent tracts of Siberia, geological 

 proofs have been adduced to shew, that a vast portion of that region 

 having been entirely exempt from all oceanic influence during ancient 

 periods of long duration, was thereby eminently qualified to be the 

 residence of such animals during the whole of their existence. It 

 has further been proved, that the production of gold veins, and the 

 elevations of the Ural, which have given to these mountains their 

 present height and relief, are phenomena of a comparatively recent 

 date, — phenomena which, in lowering the temperature of the great 

 region so effected, were, we -have little doubt, the chief causes of the 

 final destruction of the mammoths, which, with all their adaptation 

 to existence in northern latitudes, could scarcely be supposed to have 

 been capable of long enduring the want of sustenance incident to Si- 

 berian winters of the present period. 



When we turn from the great Siberian continent, which, anterior 

 to its elevation, was their chief abode, and look to other parts of 

 Europe where their remains also occur, how remarkable is it, that we 

 find the number of these creatures to be justly proportionate to the 

 magnitude of the ancient masses of land which the labours of geolo- 

 gists have defined ! Take the British Isles for example, and let all 

 their low recently elevated districts be submerged ; let, in short, Eng- 

 land be viewed as the comparatively small island she was, when the 

 ancient estuary of the Thames, including the plains of Hyde Park, 

 Chelsea, Hounslow, and Uxbridge, were under the waters, — when the 

 Severn extended far into the heart of the kingdom, and large eastern 

 tracts of the island were submerged, and there will then remain but 

 moderate sized feeding grounds for the great quadrupeds whose bones 

 are found in the gravel of the adjacent rivers and estuaries. This 

 limited area of subsistence could necessarily only keep up a small 



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