1822-1824.] 
THE SIBERIAN MAMMOTH. 
75 
collection, being four or five inches long, and for which he 
asked a very high price, four or five guineas. If I can 
get one and a half inches long from the most perfect end 
I shall not quarrel with the price.” 
Eventually these precious relics of the mammoth were 
enshrined in a silver box. In the “Reliquiae Diluvianae n 
the monster itself is thus described :— 
“ The fossil elephant differs from any living species 
of that genus, but approaches more nearly to the Asiatic 
than to that of Africa. The term mammoth (animal 
of the earth) has been applied to it by the natives of 
Siberia, who imagined the bones to be those of some 
huge animal that lived at present like a mole beneath 
the surface of the earth. It appears from the wonderful 
specimen that was found entire in the ice of Tungusia, 
that this species was clothed with coarse tufty wool of 
a reddish colour, interspersed with stiff black hair, unlike 
that of any known animal ; that it had a long mane on 
its neck and back, and had its ears protected by tufts of 
hair, and was at least sixteen feet high. 
“ The bones of elephants occurring in Britain had from 
very ancient times attracted attention, and are mentioned 
with wonder by the early historians. The old and vulgar 
notion that they were gigantic bones of the human species 
is at once refuted by the smallest knowledge of anatomy. 
The next idea, which long prevailed, and was considered 
satisfactory by the antiquaries of the last century, was, 
that they were the remains of elephants imported by the 
Roman armies. This idea is also refuted : first by the 
anatomical fact of their belonging to an extinct species of 
this genus ; secondly, by their being usually accompanied 
by the bones of rhinoceros and hippopotamus, animals 
which could never have been attached to Roman armies ; 
thirdly, by their being found dispersed over Siberia and 
North America, in equal or even greater abundance than 
in those parts of Europe which were subjected to the 
Roman power. The later and still more rational idea. 
