272 ON THE FOSSIL BONES OF PACHYDERMATOUS QUADRUPEDS. 



Towards the close of the following summer, the entire side and one 

 of the tusks of the animal became distinctly visible above the ice. It 

 was not till the fifth year, that, the ice happening to thaw more rapidly 

 than usual, this enormous mass rolled forward upon the beach. In the 

 month of March, 1804, the fisherman carried away the tusks and sold 

 them for five rubles. At this period a rough sketch of the animal was 

 taken, for a copy of which I am indebted to the friendship of M. 

 Blumenbach. It was not until two years after this, being the seventh 

 year of the discovery, that Mr. Adams, an attache of the academy of 

 Petersburg, and now a professor at Moscow, while travelling in the 

 suite of the Count Golovkin, the Russian ambassador to the court of 

 China, happened to hear of the discovery at lakoutsk and visited the 

 spot. He found the animal much mutilated. The Iakoutes of the 

 neighbourhood had peeled off its flesh to feed their dogs. Some of it 

 had been devoured by wild beasts, but the skeleton still remained 

 entire, with the exception of a fore foot. The spine, the shoulder 

 blade, the pelvis, and the remains of the three extremities were still 

 united by the ligaments and by a portion of the skin. The shoulder 

 blade that was missing was found at a little distance from the spot. 

 The head was covered with a dry skin. One of the ears, which was in 

 a high state of preservation, was garnished with a tuft of hair, the 

 pupil of the eye was still distinguishable. The brain was in the skull, 

 but dried up ; the lower lip had been gnawed, and the removal of the 

 upper lip left the jaws visible. The neck was garnished with long 

 thick hair, the skin was covered with black hair, and with a reddish 

 wool ; its remnant was so heavy, that twelve persons found it a difficult 

 matter to transport it. 



Mr. Adams tells us, they recovered more than thirty pounds weight 

 of wool and hair, which the white bears had sank in the humid soil, 

 while devouring the flesh *. The animal was a male ; his tusks were 

 more than nine feet long, measuring by the curves; and his head, with- 

 out the tusks, weighed more than four hundred pounds. Mr. Adams 

 exerted himself to the utmost in collecting all that remained of this 

 unique specimen of a former world ; he afterwards purchased the tusks 

 at lakoutsk. The emperor of Russia purchased it of him for the sum 

 of eight thousand rubles, and had it placed in the academy of Peters- 

 burg. We shall give a description of it in another place, on the 

 authority of M. Tilesius. There are other instances of similar 

 subjects. 



In 1805, this same M. Tilesius received and transmitted to M. 

 Blumenbach a tuft of hair, pulled by a man named Patapof from the 

 body of a mammoth, near the shores of the Frozen Ocean f. 



We have in the King's Museum some tufts of hair and morsels of 

 skin belonging to this subject, presented to the establishment by the 

 late Mr. Targe, censor of the Royal College of Charlemagne, who re- 

 ceived them from his nephew, who settled in Moscow. 



* Tilesius, who has described the remains of this mammoth as they are at present 

 preserved at Petersburg, remarks that there is no longer any hair adhering to the 

 skin. 



f Tilesius' Memoirs of the Academy of Petersburg, vol. v, p. 423. 



