Blunder On And Blunder On—It Is Human To Blunder.
Are all the mammoths one or two hundred thousand years old, as Sir Charles Lyell conjectured? It was stated, in the bygone, that the “diluvium” was very old, on account of the absence of human remains, but since man's remains have been found there, it is inferred that man is very ancient; whereas, the truth is, the mammoth is very recent. In many instances their bones are so fresh that they contain twenty-seven per cent. of animal substance; in some instances the flesh is still upon their bones, with their last meal in their stomachs.
Mr. Boyd Dawkins has furnished us with a thrilling narrative of the discovery of a mammoth in 1846, by Mr. Benkendorf, close to the mouth of the Indigirka. This mammoth [pg 139] was disentombed during the great thaw of the summer. The description is given in the following language: “In 1846 there was unusually warm weather in the north of Siberia. Already in May unusual rains poured over the moors and bogs; storms shook the earth, and the streams carried not only ice to the sea, but also large tracts of land. We steamed on the first day up the Indigirka, but there were no thoughts of land; we saw around us only a sea of dirty brown water, and knew the river only by the rushing and roaring of the stream. The river rolled against us trees, moss, and large masses of peat, so that it was only with great trouble and danger that we could proceed. At the end of the second day we were only a short distance up the stream; some one had to stand with the sounding-rod in hand continually, and the boat received so many shocks that it shuddered to the keel. A wooden vessel would have been smashed. Around us we saw nothing but the flooded land.... The Indigirka, here, had torn up the land and worn itself a fresh channel, and when the waters sank we saw, to our astonishment, that the old river-bed had become merely that of an insignificant stream.... The stream rolled over and tore up the soft, wet ground like chaff, so that it was dangerous to go near the brink. While we were all quiet, we heard under our feet a sudden gurgling and stirring, which betrayed the working of the disturbed water. Suddenly our jagger, ever on the look-out, called loudly, and pointed to a singular and unshapely object, which rose and sank.... Now we all hastened to the spot on shore, had the boat drawn near, and waited until the mysterious thing should again show itself. Our patience was tried, but at last a black, horrible giant-like mass was thrust out of the water, and we beheld a colossal elephant's head, armed with mighty tusks, with its long trunk moving in the water in an unearthly manner, as though seeking for something lost therein.... I beheld the monster hardly twelve feet from me, with his half-open eyes yet showing the whites. It was still in good preservation....
“Picture to yourself an elephant with a body covered with thick fur, about thirteen feet in height and fifteen in length, with tusks eight feet long, thick, and curving outward at their ends, a stout trunk of six feet in length, colossal limbs of one and a half feet in thickness, and a tail naked up to the end, which was covered with thick tufty hair. The animal was fat and well grown; death had overtaken him in the fulness of his powers. His parchment-like, large, naked ears lay turned up over the head; about the shoulders and on the back he had stiff hair, about a foot in length, like a mane. The long outer hair was deep brown and coarsely rooted. The top of the head looked so wild and so penetrated with pitch that it resembled the rind of an old oak tree. On the sides it was cleaner, and under the outer hair there appeared everywhere a wool, very soft, warm and thick, and of a fallow-brown color. The giant was well protected against the cold. The whole appearance of the animal was fearfully strange and wild. It had not the shape of our present elephants. As compared with our Indian elephants, its head was rough, the brain-case low and narrow, but the trunk and mouth were much larger. The teeth were very powerful. Our elephant is an awkward animal, but compared with this mammoth, it is an Arabian steed to a coarse, ugly dray horse. I had the stomach separated and brought on one side. It was well filled, and the contents instructive and well preserved. The principal were young shoots of the fir and pine; a quantity of young fir cones, also in a chewed state, were mixed with the moss.”
Mammoth bones are found in great abundance in the islands off the northern coast of Siberia. The remains of the rhinoceros are also found. Pallas, in 1772, obtained from Wiljuiskoi, in latitude 64°, a rhinoceros taken from the sand in which it had been frozen. This carcass emitted an odor like putrid flesh, part of the skin being covered with short, crisp wool and with black and gray hairs. Professor Brandt, in 1846, extracted from the cavities in the molar teeth of this skeleton a small quantity of half-chewed pine leaves and coniferous wood. And the blood-vessels in the interior of the [pg 141] head appeared filled, even to the capillary vessels, with coagulated blood, which in many places still retained its original red color.
We find that Mr. Boyd Dawkins and Mr. Sanford assert that the cave-lion is only a large variety of the existing lion—identical in species. Herodotus says: “The camels in the army of Xerxes, near the mountains of Thessaly, were attacked by lions.”
Sir John Lubbock, in his Prehistoric Times, page 293, says the cave-hyena “is now regarded as scarcely distinguishable specifically from the Hyæna crocuta, or spotted hyena of Southern Africa,” while Mr. Busk and M. Gervais identify the cave-bear with the Ursus ferox, or grizzly bear of North America. What is the bearing of these facts on the question of the antiquity of the remains found in the bone caverns?
Do these facts justify men in carrying human remains, found along with the remains of these animals in the caves, back to the remote period of one or two hundred thousand years?—a long time, this, for flesh upon the bones and food in the stomach to remain in a state of preservation.
“So fresh is the ivory throughout Northern Russia,” says Lyell, Principles, vol. 1, p. 183, “that, according to Tilesius, thousands of fossil tusks have been collected and used in turning.”
Mr. Dawkins says: “We are compelled to hold that the cave-lion which preyed upon the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros and musk-sheep in Great Britain, is a mere geographical variety of the great carnivore that is found alike in the tropical parts of Asia and throughout the whole of Africa.” Popular Science Review for 1869, p. 153. It has been customary to speak of all these animals as “the great extinct mammalia,” and to regard them all as much larger than existing animals of the same kind, but three of the most important still exist, and the cave-lions, at least some of the specimens, were smaller than the lion of the present. According to Sir John Lubbock the “Irish elk, the elephants and the three species of rhinoceros are, perhaps, the only [pg 142] ones which are absolutely extinct.” Prehistoric Times, p. 290. “Out of seventeen principal ‘palæolithic’ mammalia, ten, until recently, were regarded ‘extinct;’ but it is now believed that the above-mentioned elk, elephants and rhinoceros are the only extinct mammalia. Dr. Wilson affirms that skeletons of the Irish elk have been found at Curragh, Ireland, in marshes, some of the bones of which were in such fresh condition that the marrow is described as having the appearance of fresh suet, and burning with a clear flame.”
Professor Agassiz admits the continuance of the Irish elk to the fourteenth century to be “probable.” It is certain that this elk continued in Ireland down to what is claimed as the age of iron, and possibly in Germany down to the twelfth century. It is also certain that it was a companion of the mammoth and of the woolly rhinoceros. The aurochs, or European bison, whose remains are found in the river gravel and the older bone caves, is mentioned by Pliny and Seneca. They speak of it as existing in their time; it is also named in the Niebelungen Lied. It existed in Prussia as late as 1775, and is still found wild in the Caucasus. The present Emperor of Russia has twelve herds, which are protected in the forests of Lithuania. During the session of the International Archæological Congress at Stockholm, in 1874, the members of the body made an excursion to the isle of Bjorko, in Lake Malar, near Stockholm, where there is an ancient cemetery of two thousand tumuli. Within a few hundred yards from this is the site of the ancient town. Several trenches were run through this locality, and many relics obtained by the members of the congress. On the occasion Dr. Stolpe, who was familiar with the previous discoveries at this point, delivered a lecture on the island and its remains. They all, he stated, belong to the second age of iron in Sweden, and consisted of implements of iron, ornaments of bronze, and animal bones; Kufic coins have been found, along with cowrie-shells, and silver bracelets. The number of animal bones met with is immense, more than fifty species being represented, and what is especially noteworthy, the marrow bones were all crushed or split, just as in [pg 143] the palæeolithic times. The principal wild beasts were the lynx, the wolf, the fox, the beaver, the elk, the reindeer, etc. Dr. Stolpe refers the formation of this “pre-historic” city to “about the middle of the eighth century after Christ,” and says it was probably destroyed “about the middle of the eleventh century.”
“During this period the reindeer existed in this part of Sweden.”
Recent scientific discovery demands that we should almost modernize the animals we used to regard as belonging to a period of a hundred thousand years ago.
“Scientists have been addicted to unwise and inconsiderate haste in the announcement of new theories touching alleged facts; they have blundered repeatedly in their efforts to confound the Christian and set aside Moses. No less than eighty theories touching that many facts and discoveries have been developed during the period of fifty years, that were brought before the Institute of France in 1806, and not one of them survives to-day.” Truly the history of scientific investigation reveals the same fallibility of human nature that is known in the many errors found in the line of theological investigation. Truth, in science and religion, stands true to her God—man alone deviates.