The California Academy of Sciences is a veritable mega-museum. More than just a research academy as it was originally intended to be when founded in 1853, it is now comprised of a natural history museum, aquarium, planetarium, and even an indoor, human-made rainforest. Out of many possible reasons to visit the Academy, I went there this past summer to see two particular specimens: 70750 (mammoth hair and skin) and 70790 (mammoth hair).

Tilesius's De skeleto mammonteo Sibirico was the first complete and fulsome scientific study of the Adams mammoth. An important text for the intellectual history of the early-nineteenth century, and for the history of mammoth “ice mummies,” as their permafrost-preserved remains are sometimes called, Tilesius's work remains untranslated from the original Latin. Written in a difficult idiom of Latin commonly used in scientific texts produced in early modern Europe, it presents challenges to a modern translator.