Page:Excavations at the Kesslerloch.djvu/31

Rh up to 37° north latitude. Fortunately we have not merely the bones of this colossus, but we have its whole body preserved under the frozen soil of Siberia, where it is well known to occur in such abundance that a regular trade is carried on with the ivory from this fossil animal. It differs from its descendant, the modern elephant, by being provided with hair: the dark grey skin was covered with reddish wool, mixed with long black bristles somewhat thicker than horsehair. A thick mane hung from the neck, as is shown by the drawing or etching found in the cave of La Madeleine. Nature had therefore made every provision to protect this animal from cold. Its presence in the Kesslerloch is a fresh confirmation of the view we have already stated, that at that period we must have had a regular Arctic climate. The food of this giant animal consisted of the leaves of the fir, as is shown by the remains found in Siberia, both in the intestines and between the teeth. As mammoth bones have been found together with those of the horse and the reindeer, as well as both below and above them, the excavation at the Thayngen cave proves that these two last-mentioned animals lived together with the mammoth.

This animal was constantly accompanied by the Rhinoceros tichorinus, which has already been mentioned, the remains, of which, however, in the cave were very scanty: they consist only of three teeth, probably of an old animal, and of some few pieces of the skull. It is called tichorinus, as it had a bony plate dividing the nose and supporting the horn, which was three feet long; this peculiarity distinguishes it from all the seven species living at the present day. The extent of the distribution of this animal was about the same as that of the mammoth, and, like it also, it was protected from the cold climate by thick wool. About a hundred years ago, in the 64th degree of north latitude, on the banks of the Wilni, a specimen of this beast was found preserved in ice, and almost entirely perfect. It is a striking fact that the species most nearly allied to these two furred pachydermata occur in warm districts, and have nearly a naked skin.

The order of Carnivora is very well represented. It may easily be imagined that the wolf (Canus lupus) is not absent. We have found a large number of different parts of the skeleton, eight right and seventeen left under-jaws, and five right and three left upper-jaws, so that the whole number of wolves brought,