ADVERTISEMENT, 
THE following pages are translated and abridged from a paper by 
Dr. Tilesius in the Memoirs of the Petersburg Academy, and the figure of the 
skeleton is faithfully copied on stone, but of a reduced size, from the large plate 
which accompanies it. 
The term ‘ Mammoth or fossil Elephant ’ has been made use of in the 
title page with a view to correct a common mistake in the application of the 
word mammoth , which is in England frequently given to the Mastodon of Cuvier, 
the animal of which the remains are chiefly found on the banks of the Ohio 
and in other parts of America. The Siberians have long applied the name of 
Mammoth” to the Elephant whose bones are very abundant in that country, and 
in many other parts of the world, and it is so used by writers on the continent. 
These remains, wherever found, belong to a species of Elephant different from 
the two now living on the globe, and which is called by Cuvier f the fossil Ele¬ 
phant : 5 but the propriety of applying the term fossil to the subject of the fol¬ 
lowing memoir may perhaps be doubted ; for although it is of the same species, 
it was not found beneath the surface of the earth, but in ice, and retained its 
flesh and all its softer parts in a state of perfect freshness. 
A very complete dissertation on the fossil and living Elephants by M. 
Cuvier, is inserted in the eighth volume of the Annales du Museum d’Hisloire 
Naturelle , and has been re-published in his Recherches sur les Ossemens fossilcs 
de Quadrupedes. 
