st
lands there.

Still at Yefremov Kamen we saw in 1875 three Polar bears who
appeared to pasture in all peacefulness among the rocks, and did not
allow themselves to be disturbed by the enormous log-fire of
driftwood we lighted on the strand to make our coffee. Here were
found for the last time during our journey up the river actual
marine animals: Appendicularia, Olio, medusae, large beroids, &c.
Large bushy plants were still completely wanting, but the vegetable
world already began to assume a stamp differing from the Arctic
Ocean flora proper. A short distance south of Yefremov Kamen begins
the veritable _tundra_, a woodless plain, interrupted by no mountain
heights, with small lakes scattered over it, and narrow valleys
crossing it, which often make an excursion on the apparently level
plain exceedingly tiresome.

[Illustration: RIVER VIEW ON THE YENISEJ. (From a drawing by A.N.
Lundstroem.) ]

As is the case with all the other Siberian rivers running from south
to north,[210] the western strand of the Yenisej, wherever it is
formed of loose, earthy layers, is also quite low and often marshy,
while on the other hand the eastern strand consists of a steep bank,
ten to twenty metres high, which north of the limit of trees is
distributed in a very remarkable way into pyramidal pointed mounds.
Numerous shells of crustacea found here, belonging to species which
still live in the Polar Sea, show that at least the upper earthy
layer of the _tundra_ was deposited in a sea resembling that which
now washes the north coast of Siberia.[211]

The _tundra_ itself is in summer completely free of snow, but at a
limited depth from the surface the ground is continually frozen. At
some places the earthy strata alternate with strata of pure, clear
ice. It is in these frozen strata that complete carcases of
elephants and rhinoceroses have been found, which have been
protected from putrefaction for hundreds of thousands of years. Such
_finds_, however, are uncommon, but on the other hand single bones
from this primeval animal world occur in rich, abundance, and along
with them masses of old driftwood, originating from the Mammoth
period, known by the Russian natives of Siberia under the
distinctive name of "Noah's wood." Besides there are to be seen in
the most recent layer of the Yenesej _tundra_, considerably north of
the present limit of actual trees, large tree-stems with their roots
fast in the soil, which show that the limi