as Indicated in the Results of ’ Geognosy. 113 
the bones found in a fossii state belong to the living species , or 
to a member of the same genus only, now extinct. Although 
the lovers of hypothesis have rejected this inquiry as useless, 
others have submitted to the labour of the investigation. It 
was ascertained at an early period, by several observers, that 
many of the large bones dug up from the alluvial soil, in the 
temperate and cold regions of Europe, Asia, and America, be- 
longed to a species of the genus Elephas ; but it was reserved 
for Camper, Hunter, and Cuvier, to demonstrate, by means of 
the characters furnished by the bones of the head and the teeth, 
that these fossil remains belonged to a species of elephant , diffe- 
rent from any of those now living , or known to eocist on the 
globe. When the specific difference of the fossil species, deno- 
minated by the Russians Mammoth, had been determined, it 
became unsafe to speculate about the climate under which it 
had subsisted, since each species of a natural genus is influen- 
ced in its geographical and physical distribution , by peculiar 
laws. 
Raspe, from an examination of the soil in which the bones 
were imbedded, and the different countries in which they had 
been discovered, without the aid of comparative anatomy, arri- 
ved at the conclusion, that the elephant, to which these relics 
belonged, may have been a native of northern countries , in 
which it had lived, propagated, and expired. This important 
conclusion, which has since been extended to other fossil species, 
received abundant confirmation, by the fortunate discovery, in 
1799, of an entire carcase of this northern elephant, preserved 
in the ice, at the mouth of the Lena, on its entrance into the 
Frozen Ocean. The animal had been in good condition at its 
death, and its flesh was in such perfect preservation, that the 
Takutski, in the neighbourhood, cut off pieces to feed their 
dogs with ; and the white bears, wolves, wolverines, and foxes, 
made likewise an agreeable repast. Rut the most interesting cir- 
cumstance connected with this individual, was its covering of hair. 
The elephant, and indeed all tropical animals, as formerly stated, 
are thinly covered with short hair. This Siberian animal, on the 
other hand, was thickly covered with long hair. U p wards of thirty- 
six pounds of the hair were collected : the greater part of which 
vol. viii. xm. 15. .tan. 1823. h 
