45. It is toward this epoch that the poles commenced to be covered with ice, and the glaciers were formed on the mountains, which indicates a notable change in the temperature of the globe. This change must have been sudden; for, had it operated gradually, animals, such as the elephant, which live now only in warm climates, and which are found in great numbers in a fossil state in the polar territories, would have had time to withdraw little by little, to the more temperate regions. Everything goes to prove that they have been suddenly seized by great cold, and enveloped in ice. *
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* In 1771, the Russian naturalist Pallas found in the midst of the ice from the North the entire body of an elephant fossil, covered with its skin, still maintaining part of its flesh. In 1799, another elephant fossil was found and described by the naturalist Adams. It was equally immersed in a huge block of ice, near the mouth of the Lena River, in Siberia. The people who lived in the neighborhood (Jakoutes) tore its flesh apart to feed their dogs. Its skin was covered with a long mane and the neck was covered with thick fur. The head, not including the tusks, measured more than 3 meters and weighed more than 400 pounds. Its skeleton is at the museum of Saint Petersburg. On the island and on the beaches of the glacial ocean large quantities of tusk are found, which constitute objects of considerable commerce under the name of ivory fossil, or ivory from Siberia.
