154 



THE WONDERS OF GEOLOGY. Lect. II. 



enough to support a vegetation fit for the sustenance of the 

 fossil species ; and reasoning upon the present physical 

 geography of the country, that the whole tract from the 

 Ural mountains to the sea, had been upraised, like Sweden 

 (p. 116); and that the refrigeration of the north-east of 

 Asia, and its present condition, were the result. These 

 opinions have been confirmed by the recent investigations of 

 Sir R. Murchison, which are so important, both in a geo- 

 logical and palaeontological point of view, that I must offer 

 a concise sketch of the facts and observations which bear 

 upon this question. 



20. Mammoths of the alluvial deposits of Russia. — 

 Premising, that with the remains of the Mammoth and Rhi- 

 noceros, there occasionally occur bones of a gigantic Beaver 

 (Trogontherium), Bear, Elk, Ox, and a remarkable extinct 

 pachyderm (Elasmotherium), we will first describe the na- 

 ture of the deposits in which these relics are imbedded. 



There is a great analogy in the geological character of 

 the detritus composing the alluvial mammalian beds of 

 Russia and those of our own island ; both have evidently 

 been formed under similar circumstances in river deltas, and 

 in estuaries, and off sea-shores, in water of moderate depth; 

 they are in fact drifted materials that were brought down 

 by currents and streams, from the dry lands inhabited by 

 the animals whose remains they contain : and by the sub- 

 sequent elevation of the coasts these littoral deposits have 

 been raised to their present level. 



In Siberia, the mammoth's remains are found in alluvial 

 detritus in the flat northern tracts, or near the mouths of 

 the great rivers. Even in all the central and southern 

 parts of European Russia, from there being no high ridges 

 of elevation, and consequently no coarse local detritus as on 

 the flanks of the Ural mountains, the Mammoth alluvium 

 assumes the same aspect as in the distant plains of Siberia, 

 where it is equally removed from disturbing causes. 



