MAMMOT H. 
<340 
Palermo, that mud have belonged to a man four hundred 
feet high, and who therefore could be no other than one of 
the Cyclops, moft probably Polyphemus himfelf! The 
fame author has given the meafures of feveral other co- 
loffal men, and exhibits them in an engraving adapted to 
a fcaje, and placed in order, from the common fize up to 
that of the giant lalt mentioned. The belief in men of 
fuch enormous ftature, no doubt arofe from the appear¬ 
ance of bones of elephants, and other large animals found 
in the earth. When we confider, that the credulity and 
milinterpretation that are here fo linking, are not the er¬ 
rors of the weak and illiterate, but of men of talents and 
learning,— the belt inftrufted by reading, converfation, 
and foreign travel, of any in the ages ol which they lived, 
—we cannot help being ftruck with the difference between 
the criterion of truth as received in thofe ages and in the 
prefent time. It is a well-known faff, that, on the con¬ 
tinent of Europe, there are few countries where bones of 
large animals, having an obvious affinity to thofe of the 
elephant, have not been found buried in the earth ; a cir- 
cumftance no doubt the more wonderful, becaufe no fuch 
animals exilt now in thefe countries. 
It is, however, in Siberia, that the greateft quantity of 
the remains we are now confidering have been found. 
The quantity of fulfil ivory difeovered on the banks of 
the great rivers of that country, had been long an objeft 
of traffic, and had excited the wonder of the Oftiaks and 
Tongules before they drew the attention of the philofo- 
plrers of Europe. They were known by the name of mam¬ 
moth’s bones, and have been carefully examined and de- 
feribed both by Pallas and others. There is, indeed, no 
river in the north of Alia, from the Tanais to the extre¬ 
mity of the old continent, in the bed and on the banks 
of which are not to be found the bones of elephants and 
of other large animals, unknown in thefe countries. 
While the river has its courfe among the mountains, the 
bones are not found ; but they never fail to be met with, 
when it leaves the high ground, and makes its way through 
the plains. They are often found in confufed rnalfes : in 
other inltances, they are quite regular ; and, in the high 
banks of the rivers, appear in the Itrata of earth, at dif¬ 
ferent heights above the furface of the water. One of the 
molt lingular fads of this kind, is that of the rhinoceros, 
found in the frozen earth on the banks of one of the 
branches of the Lena, the Ikin and part of the fleffi being 
preferved. Pallas had this molt extraordinary Ipecimen 
dried in an oven, and depofited in the muleum of the 
Academy of St. Peterlburg. One of the feet was very en¬ 
tire, and was covered with hair from one to three linos in 
length. Pallas obferves, that he had never heard of fo 
much hair being found on the whole body of a living rhi¬ 
noceros as had been found on the foot of this ; and from 
thence he fuggelts the probability that the animal was a 
native, not ot the torrid zone, but of the middle of Afia ; 
as it is known that the rhinoceros, in the northern parts 
of India, has more hair fcattered over his body than in the 
fouth of Africa. This lad faft has farther light thrown 
on it, by a very recent dilcovery made in the molt north¬ 
ern part of Siberia, of which Cuvier and La Cepede have 
given a joint report in the 10th volume of the Annales. 
It was mentioned, they obferve, in the Englilh journals, 
that, in .1799, a Tongufe difeovered, from a diltance, a 
lingular mals, in a heap of ice, on the l'ea-ffiore, but was 
unable to approach it. Next fummer he faw it again, 
and obferved that it was fomewhat detached from the 
ice. Still, however, he law it only from a diltance. In 
jSoi, one of the horns was completely difengaged ; but, 
in 1802, the fununer was fo bad, that the ice again co¬ 
vered this unknown body. In 1803, the ice melted, and 
the mafs fell, by its own weight, on a bank of mud. In 
1804, the dilcoverer, whofe name was Schoumachoff, cut 
off the tulks, which he bartered for goods with a Ruflian 
merchant to the value of 50 rubles, (11 1 . 5s.) He then 
leftthe carcafe to be devoured by bears and wolves ; but, 
previoufly, he had a rude drawing made of it, which re* 
prefents it with pointed ears, very fmall eyes, horIVs hoofs, 
and a briftly mane, extending along the whole of its back. 
In 1806, Mr. Michael Adams, of Peterlburgh, hearing of 
the circumftance, repaired to the fpot, where, having ar¬ 
rived, he found the Ikeleton entire, one of the fore feet ex¬ 
cepted, though nearly Itripped of its fleffi. The verte¬ 
brae, from the head to the os coccygis, one of the ffioulder- 
blades, the pelvis, and the remaining three extremities, 
were ftill held firmly together by the ligature of the joints 
and by lfrips of Ikin and fleffi. The head was covered 
w ith a dry Ikin. One of the ears, well preferved, was fur- 
niflied with a tuft of briltles. Thefe parts could not 
avoid receiving fome injury, during their removal to Pe- 
terfburgh, adilianceof 6875 miles; the eyes, however,are 
preferved, and the pupil of the left eye is ftill diftinguiffi. 
able. The tip of the under lip was eaten away ; and, the 
upper being deftroyed, the teeth were expofed. The brain, 
which was ftill within the cranium, appeared dry. The 
parts lead damaged, were one of the fore-feet and one of 
the hind; thefe were Hill covered with Ikin, and had the 
foie attached to them. According to the Tungoofe chief, 
the animal was fo corpulent and well fed, that its body- 
hung down below the knee-joints. It was a male, but 
had neither tail nor trunk. From the ftrufiure of the os 
coccygis, however, Mr. Adams is perfuaded that it had a 
thick ffiort tail. Schoumachoff always perlilted in affert- 
ing, that he never faw any appearance of a probofeis; and 
•it does not appear probable that his rude draughtfmarj. 
wo.uld have omitted fuch a Itriking feature if there had 
been one. The Ikin (three-fourths of which is in the 
poffeffion of Mr. Adams) was of a deep grey colour, and 
covered with reddiffi hair and black briltles. More than 
40'ibs. weight of them, that had been trodden into the 
ground by the bears, were colleffed, and many of them 
were 2 feet 4 inches long. The head weighs 46olbs. the 
two horns, each of which is 9! feet long, weigh 4oolbs. 
and the entire animal meafured jo£ feet high, by i6| feet 
long. The tulks are curved in the direction oppolite to 
thofe of the elephant, bending toward the body of the 
animal. 
The prefervation of the fleffi and mufcles leads, in the 
opinion of the French naturalilts, to a conclufion, that 
the fpecies was deltroyed by fome fudden cataflrophe ; 
thofe individuals that were near to the Frozen Ocean 
having had their fleffi preferved by the ice. Whatever 
opinion we form as to the mode of their delfruflion, we 
can hardly doubt that fpecies of the elephant and rhino¬ 
ceros have exifted in fome former age of the world, ac¬ 
commodated to all climates, and capable of living in the 
frozen regions of the north. Some of them alfo may have 
perifhed in confequence of a fudden revolution : but this 
cannot have been the general fadt; becaufe the remains 
which appear in the banks of the rivers are in ftrata of 
earth at very different heights ; fo that they mult have 
been laid in their prefent fituation at different periods of 
time. The animals, therefore, feem to have been bred, 
and to have lived for a long fucceffion of generations, in 
the countries where their bones are depofited. They are 
fpecies of the elephant and the rhinoceros that are now 
entirely extinff, and that were accommodated to the cold 
climates of the North. 
A very remarkable fait relating to thefe bones is men¬ 
tioned in the account of Billings’s Voyage. In the Icy 
Sea, between the mouths of the Lena and Indigerka, are 
three illands, of which a Ruffian engineer was employed 
to make a chart in 1775. Of the largeft and nearett to 
the coaft, which was about thirty-fix leagues long, with 
a breadth from five to twenty, he reported, that the whole, 
except three or four hills which were of rock, was a mix¬ 
ture of fand and ice; fo that, when it thawed, large-maffes 
on the ffiore tumbled down, and never failed to difeover 
the bones and teeth of the mammoth in great abundance. 
The ifland feemed as if it had been formed of the bones of 
that animal, together with the heads and horns of buffa¬ 
loes, and a few horns of the rhinoceros. The fecond 
ifland. 
