22 THE RECENT HISTORY 



THE RECENT HISTORY OF THE ASTEROLEPIS. 

 ITS FAMILY. 



It had been long known to the continental naturahsts, that 

 in certain Russian deposits, very extensively developed, there 

 occur in considerable abundance certain animal organisms ; 

 but for many years neither their position nor character could 

 be satisfactorily determined- By some they were placed too 

 high in the scale of organized being; by others too low. 

 Kutorga, a writer not very familiarly known in this country, 

 described the remains as those of mammals ; — the Russian 

 rocks contained, he said, bones of quadrupeds, and, in espe- 

 cial, the teeth of swine : whereas Lamarck, a better known 

 authority, though not invariably a safe one, — for he had a 

 trick of dreaming when wide awake, and of calling his dreams 

 philosophy, — assigned to them a place among the corals. 

 They belonged, he asserted, as shown by certain star-like 

 markings with which they are fretted, to the Polyparia. He 

 even erected for their reception a new genus of Astrea, which 

 he designated, from the little rounded hillock which rises in 

 the middle of each star, the genus Monticularia. It was left 

 to a living naturalist, M. Eichwald, to fix their true position 

 zoologically among the class of fishes, and to Sir Roderick 

 Murchison to determine their position geologically as icb- 

 thyolites of the Old Red Sandstone. 



