48 MEMOIR OF PALLAS. 
five quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, worms, 
and plants which he had examined with care, and 
many of which were new, or previously imperfectly 
described. 
It was here was supplied the first description of 
an extinct rhinoceros which was found in December 
1771, in the Vilui, a branch of the Lena, where 
was 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 fect 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 Vilui,” 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. 
