48 MEMOIR OF PALLAS. 



five quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, worms, 

 and plants which he liad examined with care, and 

 many of which were new, or previously imperfectly 

 described. 



It was here was supplied the first description ol 

 an extinct rhinoceros which was found in December 

 1771? in the Vilui, a branch of the Lena, where 

 w^as found the somewhat similar fossil elephant in 

 1801. It was considerably advanced towards decay, 

 imbedded in a sandy bank, six feet above the water. 

 It measured about eleven feet in length and ten and 

 a half in height. The carcase of the animal, in all 

 its bulk, was still covered with skin; but it was 

 so far gone that only the head and feet could be 

 removed. " I saw the parts," says Pallas, " at 

 Irkutsk, and at the first glance perceived they be- 

 longed to a rhinoceros fully grown ; the head espe- 

 cially was easily distinguished, since it was covered 

 with the hide, which had preserved its organization, 

 many short hairs remaining upon it. The country 

 watered by the Yilui," he adds, " is mountainous, 

 and the strata horizontal : they consist of sandy and 

 calcareous schists, and beds of clay mixed with 

 great quantities of pyrites. * * * Near the spot 

 and close to the river there is a little hillock of about 

 ninety feet elevation, and which, though sandy, 

 contains beds of grind or mill-stone. The body of 

 the rhinoceros was buried in a coarse sandy gravel, 

 near this hillock ; and the nature of the soil, which 

 is always frozen, must have preserved it. The ground 

 is never thawed to any great depth near the river 



