ELEPHANT OF THE LENA. 135 
the most eastern regions, which are much colder 
than the parts of Europe under the same latitude, 
and where the soil in their very short summer, is 
thawed only at the surface, and in some years not 
at all. 
In the year 1805, when the Russian expedition 
under Krusenstern, returned for the third time to 
Kamschatka, Patapof, master of a Russian ship 
bringing victualling stores from Okhotsk, related 
that he had lately seen a Mammoth Elephant dug 
up on the shores of the Frozen Ocean, clothed 
with a hairy skin ; and shewed, in confirmation 
of the fact, some hair three or four inches long 
of a reddish black colour, a little thicker than 
horse hair, which he had taken from the skin of 
the animal : this he gave to me, and I sent it to 
Professor Blumenbach. No farther knowledge 
has been obtained on this subject, and unfortu- 
nately Patapof was not employed by any of our 
societies to return to Siberia. Thus has this 
curious fact been consigned to oblivion ; nor 
should we now possess any information respecting 
the carcass of the Mammoth, which forms more 
particularly the subject of this memoir, if the 
rumour of its discovery had not reached Mr 
Adams, a man of great ardour in pursuit of 
science, who undertook the labour of a journey 
to these frozen regions, and of preparing these 
gigantic remains, and transporting them to a great 
distance. 
