N.,
with some parts of the flesh in so perfect a state that the bulb of the
eye is now preserved in the museum at Moscow. Another carcass, together
with a young individual of the same species, was met with in the same
year, 1843, in lat. 75 degrees 15 minutes N., near the river Taimyr,
with the flesh decayed. It was imbedded in strata of clay and sand, with
erratic blocks, at about 15 feet above the level of the sea. In the same
deposit Mr. Middendorf observed the trunk of a larch tree (_Pinus
larix_), the same wood as that now carried down in abundance by the
Taimyr to the Arctic Sea. There were also associated fossil shells of
_living northern_ species, and which are moreover characteristic of the
drift or _glacial_ deposits of Europe. Among these _Nucula pygmaea_,
_Tellina calcarea_, _Mya truncata_, and _Saxicava rugosa_ were
conspicuous.

So fresh is the ivory throughout northern Russia, that, according to
Tilesius, thousands of fossil tusks have been collected and used in
turning; yet others are still procured and sold in great plenty. He
declares his belief that the bones still left in northern Russia must
greatly exceed in number all the elephants now living on the globe.

We are as yet ignorant of the entire geographical range of the mammoth;
but its remains have been recently collected from the cliffs of frozen
mud and ice on the east side of Behring's Straits, in Eschscholtz's Bay,
in Russian America, lat. 66 degrees N. As the cliffs waste away by the
thawing of the ice, tusks and bones fall out, and a strong odor of
animal matter is exhaled from the mud.[145]

On considering all the facts above enumerated, it seems reasonable to
imagine that a large region in central Asia, including, perhaps, the
southern half of Siberia, enjoyed, at no very remote period in the
earth's history, a temperate climate, sufficiently mild to afford food
for numerous herds of elephants and rhinoceroses, _of species distinct
from those now living_. It has usually been taken for granted that
herbivorous animals of large size require a very luxuriant vegetation
for their support; but this opinion is, according to Mr. Darwin,
completely erroneous:--"It has been derived," he says, "from our
acquaintance with India and the Indian islands, where the mind has been
accustomed to associate troops of elephants with noble forests and
impenetrable jungles. But the southern parts of Africa, from the tropic
of Capricorn to the Cape of Good Hop