184 DISCUSSIONS IN CLIMATOLOGY. 



on the banks of the Yenissei, and on a rotten drifted 

 trunk Limax agrestis ; Anodonta anatina he also 

 found on the banks of the Yenissei as far as Tolstoi 

 Noss, but no farther. Pisidium fontinale still lives 

 in the pools on the Tundra; as does Succinea putris on 

 the branches of the Alnaster on the Brijochof Islands." 



Mr. Belt mentions* that the Cyrena jluminalis is 

 found in Siberia in the same deposits which contain 

 the remains of the mammoth and the Rhinoceros 

 tichorhinus. 



" The evidence, then," says Mr. Howorth, " of the 

 debris of vegetation, and of the fresh-water and land- 

 shells found with the mammoth remains, amply 

 confirms the a priori conclusion that the climate of 

 Northern Siberia was at the epoch of the mammoth much 

 more temperate than now. It seems that the botanical 

 facies of the district was not unlike that of Southern 

 Siberia; that the larch, the willow, and the Alnaster 

 were probably the prevailing trees, that the limit of 

 woods extended far to the north of its present range 

 and doubtless as far as the Arctic Sea ; that not only 

 the mean temperature was much higher, but it is 

 probable that the winters were of a temperate and not 

 of an Arctic type." "f* 



The Mammoth Inter glacial. — It need be a matter of 

 no surprise that the climate of Northern Siberia during 

 the time of the mammoth was more mild and equable 

 than now, if we only admit that the mammoth was 

 interglacial. That it was of intergiacial age is a con- 

 clusion which, I think, has been well established by 

 Professor J. Geikie and others. Into the facts and 

 arguments which have been advanced in support of 

 this conclusion I need not here enter. The subject 



* "Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc," Vol. xxx., p. 464. 

 t " Geol. Mag." December 1880. 



