J. W. Gregory — Visit to Continental Museums. 441 



Before the upheaval it would seem almost certain that a vast 

 prairie plain stretched from the Carpathians and the Vistula as far as 

 the Yenissei, with a more or less uniform slope towards the south, 

 and draining itself into the vast sheet of water of which the Black- 

 Sea, the Caspian Sea, the sea of Aral, and the Balkhash are four 

 notable relics. When the Urals were upheaved, it doubtless set in 

 motion a portion of the waters of this vast sea, which swept over 

 the low country, and distributed the wide-spread mantle of soft 

 deposits far and wide, as we find it spread quite irrespective and 

 independent of the river- valleys. 



In another paper you will perhaps allow me to apply the reasoning 

 here used to the Altai and the great plateau of Mongolia. 



III. — Invertebrate Paleontology in some Continental Museums. 

 By J. Walter Gregory, F.G.S., F.Z.S., 

 of the British Museum (Nat. Hist.). 

 "VTATURALISTS who refer to their "Baedeker" for information 

 J_N respecting the Continental Natural History Museums are too 

 often disappointed by finding that if the author does happen to have 

 mentioned them, either that he has confined his attention to the 

 exterior of the building or has summarily dismissed the collection 

 as " unimportant." Hence geologists are dependent upon such 

 papers as those in which M. Cotteau 1 has recapitulated the principal 

 contents of several French and Swiss Museums, or that in which 

 Mr. Smith Woodward 2 has enumerated the most interesting speci- 

 mens of many German and Austrian collections. The last paper, 

 as is indicated by its title, " Vertebrate Palaeontology in Continental 

 Museums," is restricted solely to the Vertebrata. But as the value 

 of a Museum, as far as the Invertebrates are concerned, is dependent 

 more on the possession of collections than of single famous speci- 

 mens, the student of this group is more in need of such information 

 than is the Vertebrate palaeontologist ; every one knows where he 

 must go .to see an Archceoj)teryx, a mounted Iguanodon, or a 

 Neanderthal skull, but the last resting-place of a local collector's 

 hoard is, as a rule, less known to fame. Hence the following notes 

 may be of some service as a supplement to Mr. S. Woodward's paper. 



Hamburg. 

 The palaeontological collection is at present mostly stowed away 

 in packing cases at the Johanneum, awaiting removal to its new 

 home in the spacious Museum recently erected in the Steinthorwall. 

 But by the kindness of the Curator, Prof. Dr. Gottsche, I was 

 enabled to examine most of the Echinozoa, especially the valuable 

 series, including some well-preserved Ophiuroids, from the glacial 

 deposits of Northern Germany. There are also collections from 

 the limited exposures of the Oligocene and Cretaceous in the same 

 district. The fossils from Liineberg are less numerous than in some 



1 " Eapport sur les M usees d'histoire naturelle de quelques-unes des villes du 

 Sud-ouest de la France," Aim. Iustit. des provinces, 1868. "Notes sur quelques 

 Musees d'histoire naturelle de la Suisse et de 1'Allemagne du Sud," Bull. Soc. Sci. 

 hist, et nat. Tonne, xxiii. 1869. 2 Geol. Mag. (3; V. 1888, pp. 395-404. 



