“The skull of the fossil ox, or buffalo of Siberia, cannot be identified with any of the known species of this animal; and it is conjectured to have lived at the same time with the fossil elephant and rhinoceros, as it is found in the same alluvial tracts.
“Two distinct species of elephant are at present known; the African and the Asiatic; but only one fossil species has hitherto been discovered, which has been called the mammoth, a name borrowed from the Russians. Though differing from both the existing species, principally in the structure of the teeth, it more nearly resembles the Asiatic than the other. The remains of this animal have been found also in the alluvial soil round London, and in a great many parts of England, and even in this county. In Ireland also, in Sweden and Norway, and in almost every country of Europe, they have been discovered. Humboldt found their teeth in South America; the North American naturalists have also found them; and lately, Lieutenant Kotzebue, the Russian navigator, perceived them in an iceberg near Behring’s Straits. But it is in Asiatic Russia that they occur in the greatest abundance: there is scarcely a river there with alluvial banks that does not afford remains of the mammoth, and generally accompanied by marine shells.”
My uncle then was so good as to go to the library for an account of a fossil elephant that was found in a state of perfect preservation, though its great antiquity is evident, from the whole race to which it had belonged being now extinct. The account was drawn up by the celebrated M. Cuvier, from observations made on the spot by Mr. Adams.
“In the year 1799, a portion of an ice-bank, near the mouth of the river Lena in the north of Siberia, having fallen down, a Tungusian fisherman perceived a strange shapeless mass projecting from the remaining cliff of ice, but at a height far beyond his reach. The next year it was a little more exposed, by the dissolving of the ice; and in the end of the summer of 1801 he could distinctly see that it was the frozen carcase of some enormous animal. He continued to watch it till the year 1804, when the ice having melted earlier and to a greater degree than usual, the carcase became entirely disengaged, and fell down from the ice-cliff on an accessible part of the shore. The fisherman carried away both the tusks, and so well had the ice preserved the ivory, that he sold them for fifty rubles. This circumstance having come to the knowledge of Mr. Adams in 1806, he travelled to the spot to examine the animal, but he found the body greatly mutilated; much of the flesh had been taken away by the natives to feed their dogs, and one of the fore legs had been carried off, probably by the white bears. The rest of the skeleton was entire; the head was uninjured, even the pupil of the eye was still distinguishable; and the ears were well covered with bristly hair. A large quantity of the skin remained, which was extremely thick and heavy; and there was a long black mane on the neck, the stiff bristles of which were more than a foot in length.
“About thirty pounds weight of reddish brown bristly hair was collected in the mud, into which it had been trampled by the bears while devouring the carcase, as well as a quantity of coarse wool of the same colour. The wool was evidently the same kind of covering that lies next the skin of all the inhabitants of cold climates; and this very interesting fact proves that the fossil elephants of Siberia were residents of that country, and that they belonged to a race which no longer exists, which was fitted by nature for a rigorous climate, and which could not have endured the sultry regions where those animals are at present found, and where their skin is nearly bare.”
My uncle added that it was impossible to conjecture at what period this elephant had been buried in the ice, but that it was evident he had been frozen at the moment of his death, which sufficiently accounts for the preservation of the flesh. In cold countries it is common to preserve meat through the longest winter by freezing it; and all kinds of provisions are sent at that season from the most remote of the northern provinces, to St. Petersburgh.
Gmelin, a German traveller, tried how deep the ground had been thawed by the heat of a whole summer at Jakutsk, in 62° north latitude: he found it soft to the depth of two feet and a half; there it became harder; and at half a foot lower, it scarcely yielded to the spade. The inhabitants of that place keep their provisions continually frozen in caves which are only six feet below the surface.
30th, Sunday.—I asked my uncle to-day to explain to me the nature of those three feasts at which all the Israelites were enjoined to attend in the course of the year; the feast of Unleavened Bread; the feast of Weeks; and the feast of Tabernacles[3].
“Feasts,” he replied, “were appointed to commemorate those great events with which the existence of the Israelites, as a separate people, was identified; they also afforded opportunities of giving general instruction, of expounding the law, and of keeping up a useful connexion between the distant tribes, by meeting each other at stated times in the holy city. The first and most ancient of feasts, you know, was the Sabbath, a day of general rest, in memory of the creation; and there was also a Sabbatical year of rest every seven years; and a jubilee year every seven times seven years. The feast of Atonement took place in the seventh month; the feast of Trumpets celebrated the first day of the year; and in after times feasts were instituted on the restoration of the Temple, and on the deliverance of the Jews from Haman’s plot.
“But of all the annual festivals, the three about which you inquire were the most sacred and important. The feast of Unleavened Bread was only another name for the feast of the Passover. It lasted seven days after the Paschal lamb had been killed; sacrifices were offered on each of the days; no bread but such as was unleavened was permitted to be eaten during its continuance; and the first and the last days were observed with peculiar and impressive ceremonies. The departure of the Israelites from Egypt, and the wonderful acts of Divine power by which their liberation had been accomplished, were the objects commemorated at this great assemblage of the people;—but we have so often conversed on the Passover, that I need not renew that subject now.