7 
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. 
The preservation of the flesh of the Mammoth through a long series of 
ages, is not to be wondered at, when we recollect the constant cold and frost of 
the climate in which it was found. It is a common practice to preserve meat 
and berries through the winter by freezing them, and to send fish, and all other 
provisions annually at that period from the most remote of the northern provinces, 
to St. Petersburg and other parts of the Empire. 
The following interesting account is given by Gmelin of the depth to 
which the ground is thawed in summer (Floras Siberieae, pref. p. xlvii.) f At 
e Jakutsk on the 8th of June, I ordered the ground to be dug in an elevated field, 
* as deep as it w r as thawed. The mould extended to the depth of eleven inches ; 
f underneath it w as sand, which was soft to the depth of two feet and a half, when 
it became harder; and after digging half a foot lower, it was very hard and 
f scarcely yielded to the spade, so that the ground was thawed scarcely four feet. 
‘ I directed the same experiment to be tried at a low er spot not far distant. The 
* mould was ten inches deep, the soft sand tw r o feet four inches, but below this 
* every thing was frozen quite hard. Moreover, various berries which the Jakutski 
f consider as delicacies may be preserved in caves in the same state, that is, con- 
c tinuaily frozen, although the caves are scarcely the depth of six feet.’ 
I shall now proceed to the account which Mr. Adams has published 
of his journey to the Icy Sea, and to the place w here the carcase of the Mammoth 
whose skeleton is now to be seen in our Museum, was found lying on the sand 
and ice. It was first published in the Journal du Nord, printed at St. Petersburg 
in 1807, under the title of Relation abrege d’un Voyage a la mer Glaeiale, et 
decouverte desrestes d’un Mammouth,” and afterwards in some German ephemc- 
rides, but as they are now scarce, I shall cite his own words. 
f I should reproach myself if I longer delayed the publication of a 
* zoological discovery, which is highly interesting in its detail since it makes 
' us acquainted with a species of animal whose existence was a subject of dispute 
( among our best informed naturalists. 
f I was told at Jakutsk by the merchant Popofli chief of the body 
f of merchants of that town, that there had been discovered on the shores of the 
f Frozen Ocean near the mouth of the river Lena, an animal of extraordinary 
