THE TIME OF THE MAMMOTHS. 153 
to bring the surplus food of South America to the hungry 
mouths of Europe, may take a profitable lesson from these 
Lena elephants. Freeze the object to be preserved from 
decay in a block of ice; retain this in a frozen state and the 
entrance of the dreaded agents of change is at once barred. 
The conditions of permanent preservation are obtained ; air 
is excluded; that which is within the substance is locked 
with the water and can act no farther. These are the simple 
conditions which have kept the Lena elephants unchanged, 
while the very vegetation which supported them has been 
swept away; and by observing these conditions we might 
have preserved the body of Cæsar himself unchanged to the 
present day. Who knows but that following the simple 
method here indicated, the forms of the illustrious dead may 
yet be preserved from generation to generation, giving a 
tangible chain to connect the too forgetful present with the 
past. What could so preserve the memory of a time as one 
of its chief actors sleeping before our eyes cased in crystal 
ice? Would not the world be richer if we could have 
before us the earthly habitations of a Dante, a Shakspeare, 
or an Humboldt, as they were left by their immortal selves? 
He who entered the cold depositaries of such precious relies 
could not come forth without feeling that he was closer 
wedded to a distant past than ever before. The author does 
not feel free to advise this Siberian treatment of our ances- 
tors, as he is not sure but death should be followed by decay ; 
but to those who think that the closer our relation to the 
past the better fitted we are for the work of the present, it 
must commend itself. 
But to return to our elephants. The peculiar interest 
which is attached to the discovery of the well preserved re- 
mains of the only one of these animals which has come under 
the eye of a naturalist, warrants the transcription of the 
whole statement of the cireumstances of its discovery. 
This important discovery was made by the Chief Schuma- 
choff, of the wandering tribe of Tunguzes, near the mouth 
AMER. NATURALIST, VOL. IV. 20 
