74 
LIFE OF DEAN BUCK LAND. 
[CH. III. 
it is a lateral cavity, which is entirely artificial, and is the 
spot from which the most perfect skulls and bones have 
been extracted in the greatest abundance ; the lowest cavity 
is also entirely surrounded with the breccia above described. 
The roof and the sides of the artificial cavities, having 
been dug in the breccia, are crowded with teeth and bones ; 
but these latter do not occur in the roof or sides of any 
of the upper or natural chambers above the level of the 
stalagmitic crust that covers their floor; this applies 
equally to all the other caverns I have been describing.” 
One more passage may be quoted from “ Reliquiae 
Diluvianae.” The passage describes the Siberian mam¬ 
moth (.Mammoth Elephas Primigeniiis) preserved in the 
Museum of the Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg. The 
specimen has much of the dead skin still covering the 
head and feet. Its carcass was originally found entire, 
buried in frozen mud near the mouth of the river Lena, 
in Siberia, and the skeleton was brought to St. Petersburg 
by Adams in 1806. A portion of its skin and hair was 
presented to Dr. Buckland, and he esteemed this relic as 
one of his greatest treasures. In 1825 he writes to the 
Rev. W. Vernon Harcourt, telling him that the Bishop of 
Durham, Shute Barrington, to whom he had dedicated the 
“ Reliquiae Diluvianae,” 
“ has required me to have the lock of hair, etc., of the 
Siberian mammoth preserved in some appropriate manner 
at his expense. I mean to place it under crystal in the 
cover of a box of fossil ivory, if I can get any sufficiently 
hard, which I have not here; but I remember that a 
lapidary and curiosity collector at Burlington, whose name 
you probably know, but I forget, has just such a piece of 
a tusk from that coast. A great part of it had actually 
been made into boxes, and the remainder was in his 
