156 



THE WONDERS OF GEOLOGY. Lect. II. 



embouchures of the great streams, and the borders of the 

 then Arctic sea. Sir R. Murchison proceeds to remark that — 



" A former terrestrial surface, on which the great quadrupeds lived 

 for ages, and the rupture and diminution of adjacent lakes, coincident 

 with some of the last elevations of the Ural chain, will best explain 

 the condition in which the remains of mammoths are left buried on 

 the edges of the uplifted ridges of the Ural, as well as in the low lands 

 and great estuaries farthest removed from them. 



" As we advance into the plains of Siberia, or descend into the 

 valleys of the Tobol and the Obe, the bones are in greater quanti- 

 ties and in a better state of preservation ; and the farther the Siberian 

 rivers are followed to their mouths, the more do the mammalian 

 remains increase, until at length whole skeletons, and even carcasses, 

 are found. The single fact of the very wide diffusion of mammoth 

 bones over enormous regions, in itself indicates that those creatures 

 had long been inhabitants of such countries, living and dying there 

 for ages ; whilst their final destruction may have resulted from aqueous 

 debacles dependent on oscillations of the land, the elevation of moun- 

 tain chains, and the formation of much local detritus. 



" The Siberian mammoth, having a close coating of wool and much 

 shaggy hair, seems to have been adapted to inhabit the regions of 

 northern Europe and Asia ; and the elevation of large tracts of land 

 in Siberia, by laying dry the low shores and estuaries into which their 

 bones had been washed, would necessarily render the climate more 

 intensely cold. The intimate structure of the teeth in the mammoth 

 differs from that of the Asiatic and African elephant, and is supposed 

 by Professor Owen to indicate that the extinct creature lived on 

 coarser ligneous tissue of trees and shrubs, that may have constituted 

 forests, extending even into the promontories of the icy sea, ere the 

 physical events which elevated the Ural mountains to their present 

 altitude, and left the coasts with no vegetable support but the moss 

 and lichens for the rein-deer, with which the mammoths were once 

 contemporary."* 



22. The Mastodon. — In various parts of North America, 

 there are marshy tracts abounding in salt and brackish 

 waters, that are frequented by deer, and other animals ; 



* From a masterly review of the phenomena relating to this sub- 

 ject, by Sir E. I. Murchi&on, -" Qeolog) o\' Russia," vol. i. chap, six, 



