In a previous paper we showed that the extinction of the Mammoth was sudden, and was accompanied by a sudden change of climate throughout Northern Siberia, which enabled its soft parts to be preserved intact. We did not mean that the change of climate was the cause of the Mammoth's extinction. This it clearly was not, for this change on a large and marked scale was apparently confined to Siberia, while the Mammoth disappeared from a much wider area, where this climatic revolution could not have been so fatal. A sudden change of climate could not account for a catena of Mammoth carcases found buried several feet underground from the Obi to Behrings Straits. If they had been killed by the cold merely, their bodies would have lain on the surface where they fell and become long ago the prey of the predatory animals. Nor again can we, with such a postulate merely, account for the remains occurring in many cases in hecatombs, and in many cases also with a mixture of various species of animals. The cold would hardly have destroyed the bears and hyænas which are found linked in a common fate with the Mammoths and Rhinoceroses. Nor, as we shall see, would a mere change of climate, however severe, account for other factors in the problem. The change of climate accounts perfectly for the preservation of the carcases, which preservation again necessitates the conclusion that that change was a sudden or very rapid one; but we have clearly still to seek the real cause of the disappearance of the animals of which the change of climate was a concurrent effect.
