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 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 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 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 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_.