GEOLOGICAL FEATURES OF OUR GLOBE. 
485 
in rock, and the letters filled in with lead. In Siberia; a range 
of ice hills are found; covered with a thin stratum of soil; on 
which there is a growth of stunted firs ; those glacial hills have 
been found to contain the frozen bodies of animals; which are 
still as perfect and fresh as when they were first entombed there. 
In 1 790; the fall of an ice cliff disclosed a huge mammoth; no 
less than twenty-one feet long; and twelve high; with tusks 
of the enormous length of ten feet ; this vast body fell in a 
slip of the icy cliff; and became the food of bears and wolves; 
much of the hair; and nearly its perfect skeleton; with many 
of the ligaments still adhering; were fortunately preserved 
and brought to the Museum of St. Petersburg; where they 
are set up. Within the last few years another also has been 
found in the same locality; equally well preserved ; Lyell; in 
his Address to the British Association at Bath; alludes to it ; 
in fact; the remains of those gigantic animals are so numerous 
in the frozen wastes of the Tundra; that though the traders 
have supplied the St. Petersburg market with ivory from 
them for more than a hundred years; the tusks seem as 
plentiful as ever; and they are of such an enormous size that 
a single one will weigh 300 lbs.; and upwards of 40;000 lbs. 
are disposed of yearly in New Siberia; this gives the product 
of one hundred mammoths for the traffic of a twelvemonth. 
But as long ago as the 13th century; the princes of the 
barbaric East were wont to have their thrones made of slabs 
and pillars of that ivory; so that the trade must have been 
very ancient. Even now there are places where those tusks 
are found piled up in heaps; as if whole herds of mammoths 
had crowded together, and succumbed at the same moment 
to some terrible destruction.* 
Nor are those grand indications of former life confined to 
Siberia, even Melvill's Island, on the opposite side of the 
polar ocean, is likewise found to abound in fossil remains. 
Captain M’Clure discovered on Banksland, several miles 
inland, remarkable hills three hundred feet high, formed of 
one mass of timber, some of it petrified. On Prince Patrick's 
Isle, in lat. 76° 15' N. and 121° 40' long., Lieutenant Meecham 
* Mr. Lumley’s Report. 
