144- 



the last links of pi-imseval or palaeozoic life were not obliterated *. 

 In this case the value of the philosophic caution given by Mr. Lyell 

 will be very apparent, viz. that aa^c ought not to infer the non-ex- 

 istence of land animals from the absence of their remains in con- 

 temporaneous marine strata f. 



Saurians, Cetaceans, <?rc. — 1 am not aware that researches of the 

 past year have added much to our acquaintance with new forms of 

 vertebrata in the secondary deposits, though it must not be unre- 

 corded, that our zealous contributor M. Hermann Von Meyer, has 

 added to the list of Saurians of the Muschelkalk a new genus, which 

 he describes under the name of Simosaurus. 



In Russia a very curious discovery has been made by Professor 

 Brandt, of which I have been just informed by my friend Count 

 Keyserling. Pallas had spoken of a locality among the cliffs of Ta- 

 man, in the southern steppes, where remains of whales were found ; 

 Rathke had mentioned the head of an animal of which the vertebrae 

 were known, and which he described as approaching to a whale ; 

 and more recently Professor Eichwald considered this fossil as be- 

 longing to the Dolphins and named it Xiphias priscus. Obtaining 

 possession of the specimen for the museum of St. Petersburg!!, Pro- 

 fessor Brandt worked the head of the colossal creature out of the 

 rock in Avhich it was imbedded, and pronouncing it to belong to a 

 new family of whales, described it under the name of Cetotherium 

 Rathkii. This fossil whale forms a new link in the animal king- 

 dom, and is more nearly allied to the herbivorous cetaceans than 

 to the Dolphins, Its position in the geological series is also most 

 remarkable ; for the rock in M'hich it occurs contains shells similar to 

 those of the tertiary deposits of the Miocene age, which extend from 

 Volhynia and Podolia to the Crimea and Taman. It is also very 

 remarkable, that along with this herbivorous cetacean the other 

 organic remains (among which, however, banks of corals occur) 

 have more the character of the inhabitants of a brackish sea than 

 those of the subjacent rocks, whose fauna more resembles that of the 

 Black Sea and the Mediterranean. 



These relations are in accordance with modern conditions, and 

 ai»e, indeed, explained by an analogy in our own country, for an ac- 

 quaintance with which I am indebted to our Curator, Mr. E. 

 Forbes. The lake of Stennis, in the Orkney Islands, cele- 

 brated by Sir Walter Scott, has been converted, whether by 

 elevation of the land or other cause, from a saltwater loch 

 into a freshwater and marshy tract, and with this great but 

 gradual change, certain marine genera have continued to live 

 on amid their new associates of land and fresh water, whilst others 

 have perished. That which is taught on a. small scale in the Scottish 

 lake has occurred over a vast area in the case of the Caspian Sea ; 

 which, in consequence of separation from the Black Sea has passed 

 into a brackish state, and the same hardy and time-serving marine 



* This view has been strengthened by tlie reseavclies of Mr. Logan, see 

 note, p. 546. 



f GeoL Proceedings, vol. iii. p. 796. 



