ON THE FOSSIL BONES OP THE ELEPHANT. 271 



stance which must at once exclude all idea of expeditions conducted 

 by men, is, that, in several places, as well in France, in Germany, in 

 Italy, in fine, as everywhere, these bones have been found intermixed 

 with an innumerable quantity of the bones of other wild animals, large 

 and small. The bones are scattered, and it is only here and there that 

 an entire skeleton has been found in a sort of sepulchre of sand. 



It is worthy of notice, too, that they are frequently found in or 

 beneath beds interspersed with marine productions, such as shells, 

 and petrified sharks' teeth, &c. These are the observations of M. 

 Pallas. A peculiarity which is no less striking than any of those 

 mentioned by that great naturalist is this, that in many places the 

 bones of elephants have been discovered, with pieces of flesh or other 

 soft matter still adhering to them. It is a generally received opinion 

 among the people of Siberia, that mammonts have been dug up 

 clothed with their fresh and bleeding flesh. This of course is an ex- 

 aggeration, but it is founded on the fact of their being sometimes 

 found with the flesh preserved by the frost. 



Isbrand Ides speaks of a head, the flesh of which was corrupted, and 

 of a congealed foot as large as that of a middle sized man ; and John 

 Bernhard Muller mentions a tusk, the cavity of which was filled with a 

 matter resembling coagulated blood. We might feel inclined to doubt 

 these facts, as I remarked in the first edition of this work, if they were 

 not confirmed by one of a similar kind, the authenticity of which is 

 beyond all question. A rhinoceros, complete in every respect, with 

 its flesh, skin, and hair, was exhumed at Vilhoui in 1771. We are 

 indebted to M. Pallas for a circumstantial account of this^ discovery, 

 and the head and feet are still preserved at St. Petersburg. Since 

 that period two additional confirmations, still more decisive of the fact, 

 have presented themselves. 



The first is that of an elephant found on the banks of the Alaseia, a 

 river which falls into the Frozen Ocean, on the other side of the Indig- 

 hirska, of which an account is given in the travels of Sarytschew. 

 It had been disengaged by the river, and was found in an upright po- 

 sition. It was almost entire, and covered by its skin, to certain parts 

 of which long hairs were still attached *. 



The second is that of the elephant conveyed to Petersburg by Mr. 

 Adams, the perfection of which bordered close upon the marvellous. 

 The fact was first announced in the Journal du Nord, printed at 

 Petersburg, in October, 1807. The account was copied into several 

 German papers, and was again reprinted in 1815, inthe fifth volume of 

 the Memoirs of the Academy of Petersburg. I shall extract the prin- 

 cipal details. 



In 1799, a fisherman of Tongousa observed among the glaciers on 

 the shores of the Frozen Ocean, near the mouth of the Zena, a shape- 

 less mass, the nature of which he could not divine. The following 

 year, he remarked that this mass had become more disengaged from 

 the surrounding ice, but he was still at a loss to account for its ap- 

 pearance. 



* Sarytschew's Travels in the North-East of Siberia, &c. 



