FOSSIL REMAINS. 
609 
the sand banks of the Wiluji, which runs in about 64" of north latitude into the 
Lena ; the head and two feet only were taken care of, the rest of the carcass, 
though much decayed, was still enclosed in its skin, and was left to perish : the 
bones were yellow ; the foot had on its skin many hairs and roots of hairs. On 
various parts of the skin were stiff hairs from one to three inches long. 
If we compare these phenomena of the arctic regions with those of other 
countries, and especially with England, we shall find it by no means peculiar to the 
northern extremities of the world to afford extensive deposits of diluvial mud and 
gravel, containing the remains of extinct species of the elephant and rhinoceros, 
together with those of horses, oxen, deer, and other land quadrupeds. A large 
portion of the east coast of England, particularly of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, 
Yorkshire, and Northumberland, is composed of similar deposits of argillaceous 
diluvium, loaded in many places with bones of the same species of quadrupeds ; 
these deposits occur not only on the low grounds and lands of moderate elevation, 
but also on the summits of the highest hills, e. g. on the chalky cliff of Flambo- 
rough Head, four hundred and thirty feet above the sea. In the central parts of 
Eno-land near Rugby, we have similar deposits, containing bones, tusks, and 
teeth of the same species of animals. In Scotland we have the same argillaceous 
diluvium on the east coast, near Peterhead, and near the western coast, at Kilmaurs, 
in Ayrshii-e, where it contains tusks of elephants and bones. 
The analogies which these deposits offer to those in the arctic regions are 
very striking. In both cases the bones are of the same species of animals. In both 
cases they are imbedded in superficial deposits of mud and gravel of enormous 
extent and thickness. In both cases the deposits derive no accession from existing 
causes, and are suffering only continual loss and destruction by the action of the 
atmosphere, of rivers, and of the sea. Their chief peculiarity in the polar regions 
seems to consist in the congelation, to which the diluvium itself as well as the 
remains included in it are subject, from the influence of the present polar climate. 
Examples might be quoted to show the occurrence of similar remains in diluvial 
deposits all over Europe, and largely in America. Having then such extensive 
accumulations of the bones of animals, and the detritus of rocks, all apparently 
resulting from the simultaneous action of water, but which the operation of 
existing seas and rivers in the districts occupied by this detritus can never have 
produced, and are only tending to destroy, we may surely be justified in referring 
them all to some adequate and common cause, such as the catastrophe of a violent 
and general inundation alone seems competent to have aflPorded. 
The facts we have been considering are obviously much connected with the 
still unsettled question respecting the former climate and temperature of that part 
4 I 
