When we take into account all these vegetable resources, and that the elephant of tropical climates, in a wild state, feeds on grass, shrubs, and the leaves and younger branches of trees, the improbability of the Mammoth finding sufficient sustenance in the frozen tracts of Siberia becomes considerably lessened. The latter country (to recapitulate what has been stated) produces abundance of trees, if not immediately on the coast, at least in the interior; shrubs, even to the very verge of the Icy Sea; grass, in the short summer which visits these parts with almost intense heat; and great plenty of cryptogamic plants beneath the snows of winter. Here then are the constituents of the food of elephants; and if we suppose that the Mammoth periodically migrated like the rein-deer, which we are told betake themselves in winter to the interior forests, and retreat to the borders of the Icy Sea in spring to shelter themselves from the flies and insects then infesting those forests*, we appear to obtain a plausible solution of the problem.

Viewed in every light, however, the subject is

* "Professor Owen, in his excellent History of British Fossil Mammalia, 1844, p. 261. et seq. observes, that the teeth of the Mammoth differ from those of the living Asiatic or African elephant in having a larger proportion of dense enamel, which may have enabled it to subsist on the coarser ligneous tissues of trees and shrubs. In short, he is of opinion that the structure of its teeth, as well as the nature of its epidermis and coverings, may have made it a meet companion for the rein-deer." Lyell's Principles of Geology, page 80.

beset with difficulties; and if I am disposed to regard this last hypothesis as encompassed with the fewest, and to have a preponderance of evidence in its favour, I by no means think that we have sufficient grounds at present before us for drawing any very positive conclusion. The ear of science should never be closed against fresh evidence, and we have yet much to investigate and much to learn in that department of inquiry to which the present question belongs. Many of the countries within the tropics have never been geologically explored. The nature of the organic remains lying beneath their surface is unknown; and we are therefore deficient in many facts which may hereafter be brought to light and furnish grounds of decision on the general question now under review.

[I have thought it best to print the preceding discourse pretty much as it was delivered above twenty-five years ago, adverting in the present note to some facts and opinions regarding the subject of it, which have since transpired. The chief of these, worthy of remark, appear to be the following, which I have taken from the seventh edition of Lyell's Principles of Geology.

1. Two other mammoths, with flesh upon them, were found in Siberia in the year 1843.

2. Some interesting facts have been adduced by Mr. Darwin, to show that the quantity of food consumed by herbivorous animals of a large size has been generally overrated; a consideration which tends to lessen the difficulty respecting an adequate supply of food in the case of the Siberian mammoth.

3. A theory has been proposed by Sir Charles Lyell, which, renouncing the supposition of any violent change, considers the

climate of Siberia to have become more rigorous than formerly, in consequence of a gradual elevation and extension of the Siberian lowlands to the north; and that it is to a period anterior to this extension, when a higher but still moderate temperature prevailed, that we are to refer the occupation of the now inhospitable region by the gigantic elephants and other animals at present alien to the soil where their remains are so abundant. This theory appears to get over two difficulties besetting the hypothesis of no change in the temperature, viz., the scanty supply of food in so rigorous a climate, and the extinction of the races of animals once inhabiting the country; the latter of which circumstances is left unaccounted for, if we suppose all the physical characteristics of the region to have continued unaltered.]

51

DISCOURSE III.

ON THE CHANGES WHICH HAVE TAKEN PLACE IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, ESPECIALLY DURING THE THREE LAST CENTURIES.

To trace the progress of the sciences, to mark the small beginnings from which they sprung, and their gradual advancement to the farthest point to which they have attained, has always been justly regarded as an occupation of the highest interest by those philosophers who have been engaged in their pursuit and conversant with their principles. And even persons who are acquainted only with the great facts thus brought to light, and are incapable of entering into the processes concerned in the results, are gratified to follow the general course of discoveries, by which they feel that human power has been enlarged and human nature exalted.

In a similar way, but with the animation of much wider sympathies, we are all interested in the general history of our race, and the particular career of kingdoms and communities, and even individuals. Wherever, indeed, there is a succession of events in which men are the agents or the patients, we love to follow them out, to mark their connection, and to watch their issue.

There is one series of this kind, however, which seems to have attracted little notice, even amongst philosophers, till a recent period, although it concerns all mankind, appeals both to their curiosity and to their sympathies, and is not only worthy of close investigation, but well able to repay it. I mean the successive changes which have taken place in the languages of the world, and more especially in the language which we are constantly in the habit of employing.

Such changes are in fact connected with the history of the human race in a way on which few have probably reflected. While a comparison of the more permanent parts of various languages enables us to trace the migrations of tribes and nations, and their descent from a common stock, an examination of the changes in the idiom of any particular country enlightens us in regard to many points of its fluctuating domestic condition.

If it were possible to strip a language of the modifications and contributions of successive ages, we should find, at every step, curious and instructive indications, beyond what are furnished by historical records, of the varying knowledge, arts, customs, occupations, modes of thinking and feeling, passions, and prejudices of different generations, till at length we should arrive at a rude instrument of communication corresponding to the rude ideas of the barbarous race who employed it. We should then see clearly, if we had not seen it before, that