500 
ELEVATION OF SIBERIA AND END OF MAMMOTH PERIOD. 
creatures as were entombed in masses of tenacious clay at the mouths of these 
estuaries would necessarily be preserved almost intact, whilst the desiccation and 
elevation of such mud-banks, accompanied by an increase of cold, due to the raising 
up of a large terrestrial surface like Siberia, would thoroughly well account for the 
occasional conservation of their thick hides and much of their animal matter. 
Whether, then, we argue from the evidences presented to us in the Ural chain 
and its flanks, from the ancient geography of Siberia, or from the natural history 
of the mammoths, and their adaptation to existence in the same parallels of latitude 
as those in and near which they are now found, we can, it appears to us, arrive at 
no other conclusions than those which we have endeavoured to sustain, and which, 
in fact, do not imply even as great an oscillation of land within this comparatively 
modern period, as would be required to explain the surface phenomena of most 
other parts of Europe with which we are acquainted. In truth, the uprising of 
Siberia “ en masse” to the height of one or two hundred feet above its general 
level when mammoths lived, will amply suffice to explain both the desiccation of 
its northern shores, into the mud of which the fossil terrestrial remains had been 
washed, and the increased cold over that vast mass of continental land. 
In the meantime we may repeat, that whether discovered in the gravelly detritus 
or clay on either flank of the Ural, in the high banks of the great streams which 
respectively flow into Asia and Europe, or in still greater quantities on the sides 
of the estuaries of the great Siberian rivers upon the glacial ocean, in all cases we 
find the mammoths entombed in materials which, whether coarse lacustrine shingle 
near the mountains, or mud and sand at a distance from them, all announce in the 
most emphatic manner, that these great creatures lived in lands adjacent to lakes 
and estuaries, in which during long ages their bones were interred, and were some- 
times carried out to sea and commingled with oceanic remains. 
Though we now take leave of the Ural chain, we will terminate the subject which 
occupies us, by giving a very brief sketch of the manner in which the great extinct 
mammals are distributed over European Russia. 
Fossil Quadrupeds of Russia in Europe . — Far from being peculiar to the Ural 
respecting the grounds on the lower region of the Issetz river (p. 490) be sustained, then, indeed, we see 
no reason why a very considerable tract to the south of that river, which is covered with black earth, 
may not also have been under an arm of the sea at that period. At the same time we think that the 
granitic hills between Miask and Troitsk and the chain of Kara-Edir-tau, both of which are destitute of 
any traces of marine sediment, must have then been above the waters. 
