498 
ANCIENT GEOGRAPHY OF SIBERIA. 
drifted thither, and possibly for some distance 1 . Yet if we suppose, that these 
animals lived on certain lands, as in the Ural and the north-trending chains, up to 
(i0° and 65° N. lat. (which facts and physical conditions warrant), w T e are still in- 
debted to Professor Owen for having removed the greatest of all the difficulties 
which previouslye nvironed the problem ; since there is no longer any objection 
to the mammoth being an inhabitant even of the Arctic Circle, provided (and there 
are still such examples in Europe) fir-trees and shrub-like vegetables could exist in 
such latitudes. 
From the physical structure of the region we are indeed entitled to suppose, that 
not only the Ural and Altai mountains, but also their advanced northern ridges 
and plateaux (a half or two-thirds of Siberia), formerly constituted a region covered 
with forests, like those of the Ural, in some parts, and with brushwood steppes in 
others, from which whole herds of mammoths, as suggested by Mr. Lyell, would 
naturally migrate in the summers (even now intensely hot) to the embouchures 
of the great streams and edges of the then Arctic Sea. Such might have been, 
we may add, the position and condition of some of these creatures at the periods 
when, as we have imagined, the highest ridges of the Ural were thrown up, fol- 
lowed by the rupture of many lakes, and the consequent inundation of large tracts of 
the flat country, previously frequented by these great herbivorous animals. During 
their long occupancy of these lands, myriads of their carcases must doubtless have 
been washed down by the rivers and buried in local mud and alluvium, — in such 
positions, in fact, as they are found along the banks of the Sosva and the tribu- 
taries of the Obe, before alluded to. Others reaching the mouths of the streams, 
may easily have been transported into the estuaries, and even, by the power of 
such volumes of water as are poured forth into the glacial ocean by the Obe, the 
Yenisei and the Lena, borne out far to sea and there lodged on former mud 
banks, which now constitute the shores of New Siberia, where thousands of bones 
of these mammals are interred 2 . If the power of drifting the bodies of animals to 
1 Marine remains were found by Pallas, associated with mammoths’ bones, in numerous places in and 
about 70° N. lat. 
2 See Admiral Wrangel’s Voyage for a description of the sands and mud of the “Tundra” (evidently 
all ancient marine sediment) in which the mammoth bones are found on the continent, including his com- 
panion Anjou’s account of their enormous quantity in the isles of New Siberia (English edition, translated 
by Mrs. Sabine). 
