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EXTINCT MONSTERS. 
the habits of extinct animals ; and too much reliance must not 
be placed on arguments derived from the habits of their living 
descendants or their near relations. The older geologists fell 
into this mistake with regard to the Mammoth, as did even 
Cuvier. Modern elephants are at present restricted to regions 
where trees flourish with perennial foliage, and, therefore, it was 
argued that there must have been a change of climate — either 
gradual or sudden, in the country of the Mammoth. 
Cuvier, who believed in sudden revolutions on the earth’s 
surface, argued that the Mammoth could not possibly have -lived 
in Siberia as it is now ; and that, at the very moment when" the 
beast was destroyed, the land was suddenly converted into a 
glacial region ! (“ C’est done le meme instant qui a fait perir les 
animaux, et qui a rendu glacial le pays qu’ils habitaient, cet 
evenement a ete subit, instantane, sans aucune gradation.” Sir 
Charles Lyell argued, from geological evidence with regard to 
the rise of land along the Siberian coast, that the climate had 
become somewhat more severe, and that finally the Mammoth, 
though protected by its shaggy coat, died out on account of 
scarcity of food.^ 
Professor Owen is unwilling to believe that such changes as 
these brought about the final extinction of the Mammoth, and he 
concludes that it was quite possible for such an animal to have 
flourished as near to the North Pole as is compatible with the 
growth of hardy trees or shrubs. 
“ The fact seems to have been generally overlooked, that an 
animal organised to gain its subsistence from the branches or 
woody fibre of trees, is thereby rendered independent of the 
seasons which regulate the development of leaves and fruit ; the 
forest food of such a species becomes as perennial as the lichens 
that flourish beneath the winter snows of Lapland ; and, were 
such a quadruped to be clothed, like the reindeer, with a natural 
^ Os semens Fossiles, tom. i. p. io8. 
^ See The Pt’inciples of Geology^ vol. i. chap. x. 
