278 
EXTINCT MONSTERS 
The remains of the Mammoth occur over a very large geo- 
graphical area — fully half the globe. 
By far the most important discovery of a frozen Mammoth is 
that of a young Russian Engineer, Benkendorf by name, who 
was an eye-witness of its resurrection, though, most unfortunately, 
he was unable either to procure his specimen, as Mr. Adams did, 
or to make drawings of it. A full account was given in our 
previous edition, p. 204. 
With regard to the food of the Mammoth, Benkendorf’s dis- 
covery is of great service in solving the question how such a 
creature could have maintained its existence in so inhospitable 
and unpromising a country. The presence of fir-spikes in the 
stomach is sufficient to prove that it fed on vegetation such as is 
now found at the northern part of the woods as they join the low 
treeless tundra in which the body lay buried. 
Before this discovery the food of the Mammoth was unknown, 
and all sorts of theories were devised in order to account for its 
remains being found so far north. Some thought that the 
Mammoth lived in temperate regions, and that the carcases were 
swept down by great floods into higher and colder latitudes. 
But it would be impossible for the bodies to be hurried along a 
devious course for so many miles without a good deal of injury, 
and probably they would fall to pieces on the way. But, as 
Professor Owen has so convincingly argued, there is no reason 
why herds of Mammoths should not have obtained a sufficient 
supply of food in a country like the southern part of Siberia, 
where trees abound in spite of the fact that during a great part 
of the year it is covered with snow. And this is his line of 
reasoning. The molar teeth of the elephant show a highly com- 
plicated and peculiar structure, and there are no other quad- 
rupeds that feed to such an extent on the woody fibre of the 
