y have easily been formed from the
observation of the fossil bones, and do not necessarily imply any memory
of the living original.

The two examples of the exhumation of _Pachydermata_ in a fresh state,
which I have given in detail, are by no means the only cases that have
occurred. It is the universally-received belief throughout Siberia, that
Mammoths have been found with the flesh quite fresh and filled with
blood; probably meaning that the animal juices flowed when thawed.
Isbrand Ides mentions a head on which the flesh, in a decaying state,
was present; and a frozen leg, as large as the body of a man; and Jean
Bernhard Mueller speaks of a tusk, the cavity of which was filled with a
substance which resembled coagulated blood.

Again, in the voyage of Sarytschew, particulars are given of the
discovery of a Mammoth on the banks of the Alaseia, a river which flows
into the Arctic Ocean, beyond the Indigirska. It had been dislodged by a
flood, and somewhat injured; but the carcase was still almost entire,
and was covered with the skin, to which in some places long hair
remained attached.

These statements might reasonably have been esteemed either fables or
gross exaggerations, but for the subsequent discovery of the rhinoceros
and elephant whose remains have been brought to Europe. Read in the
light of these accounts, the earlier stories take the dignity of
authentic history; and it is interesting to note how well these details
agree with those observed by the accurate Adams;--the long hair, for
example, with which the Alaseia carcase was clothed being the very
counterpart of that upon the Lena elephant; though _a priori_ we should
have looked for a very different condition in the integument of these
huge Pachyderms.

If we look now at the great Mastodon, that elephantine beast, which with
a stature equal to that of the tallest African elephant combined a much
greater length of body and bulk of limb, we shall see some reason for
concluding that the period of its decease is not indefinitely removed
from our own era. Its remains occur in greatest abundance in North
America; and it is interesting to observe that among several of the
aboriginal tribes of Red men there were extant traditions of the
Mastodon as a living creature. Dim, vague, and distorted these
traditions are; but so far from our rejecting them _in toto_ on that
account, we ought rather to consider these characters as evidence of
their antiquity. When