THE TIME OF THE MAMMOTHS. 157 
are more closely watched, we will doubtless obtain similarly 
preserved bodies of the other large mammals which were 
contemporaneous with these elephants. It would be contrary 
to all analogy to find that these great pachyderms held these 
vast steppes of Siberia unassociated with other large mam- 
mals. We may reasonably expect to find a whole fauna of 
creatures fitted to the rude conditions to which we have seen 
this elephant is adapted. 
Unfortunately we know too little concernirig the fossils of 
the extreme northern part of North America to be able to 
say whether the Siberian elephants were peculiar to the Asi- 
atic border of the Arctic Ocean, or extended over the north- 
ern part of this continent. All analogy in the distribution 
of life around that sea, at thé present day, would lead us to 
expect that the same, or allied species, ranged all along our 
northern shore. The Mackenzie River being subject to just 
such a peculiar overflow as has embedded the elephants of 
Siberia in ice, we can hope that when its shores are better 
known there will be similar fossils found there. There 
seems to have been an obscure tradition among some portions 
of the Indians of eastern North America, that on the unex- 
plored and distant recesses north of Lake Ontario and the 
St. Lawrence, there dwelt some great mammals which had a 
size like that of the elephant. With the early voyagers this 
was accepted as proof that the mammoth still lived in the 
western part of Labrador; and on some of the first maps 
this territory was laid down as the habitation of these sur- 
viving members of the giant race whose bones strewed the 
surface of so large a portion of the continent. It is to be 
expected that the Indians, who must from time to time have 
encountered skeletons of the mastodon and elephant where 
they had been unearthed by the changes of river courses, or 
brought to light in their efforts to free the obstructed course 
of large springs, such as those at Saratoga or Big Bone Lick, 
would have believed the species still living, and have assigned 
it a home in some distant region. A savage conceives with 
