502 
MAMMOTH CLAY DRIFT AT TAGANROG. 
black earth or tchornozem, of which we shall treat at some length in the last 
chapter. In illustrating the ordinary character of the mammoth alluvia of Euro- 
pean Russia, we cannot, perhaps, do better than cite the example of Taganrog, 
because, exceedingly remote from the regions we have been considering, and, in- 
deed, from any mountains, it there forms the summit of abrupt cliffs on the Sea of 
Azof, its relations to the underlying strata being well-exposed. The annexed view 
of 1 aganrog from the west, is given to show that the underlying tertiary limestone 
of the newer Miocene age (see description and woodcut, p. 296) there forms the 
66 . 
base of the cliffs (c), the rocks of which, rising to about twenty feet above the sea, 
are covered by finely laminated sands, as represented by the whitish band (b) in 
the cliff, which are charged with fluviatile shells, little differing, if at all, from those 
now inhabiting the adjacent river Don. Above this, and occupying a thickness of 
about fifty feet, is the clay drift («), as indicated by the sloping bank, in which the 
mammoth bones are interred, some very fine and well-preserved specimens of them 
having been found exactly at the period of our visit. This mammoth drift is just 
as completely separated from any deposit resulting from existing agency, as the 
auriferous detritus and coarse clay on the sides of the Ural hills, or as the high 
mud-banks forming the cliffs of the great Siberian rivers and estuaries, for it covers 
the whole of the coast plateau, the present adjacent river Krinka and the Sea of 
Azof being 100 feet beneath it. In truth, like similar drift over wide spaces of 
Central and Southern Russia, it is distributed at various levels, and most clearly 
indicates considerable submergence at the period when these animals were de- 
stroyed. Such facts as to the nature and distribution of the entombing materials, 
which occupy cliffs high above the valleys, compel us to believe, that the greater 
part of this low continent, unlike the Ural and the higher portions of Siberia, was 
not dry land during the existence of the mammoths, or in the period immediately 
