Marsh — Recent Observations on European Dinosaurs. 413 



Art. XLIII. — Recent Observations on European Dinosaurs;* 

 by O. C. Marsh. 



During the past summer, it was my privilege to attend the 

 International Congress of Geologists at St. Petersburg, as an 

 official delegate from this country, and this gave me an oppor- 

 tunity to see a number of museums and collections in Europe 

 which I had not before visited. I thus had the privilege of 

 inspecting personally many interesting reptilian remains that I 

 had not previously known, and of examining others which were 

 more or less familiar to me from figures and descriptions. 



In the present paper, I have only time to speak of the Dino- 

 saurs, in which I have long taken a special interest, and have 

 endeavored to study all the known specimens of importance, 

 both in this country and in Europe, having in view the prep- 

 aration of a series of memoirs on the different groups of this 

 subclass of extinct Reptilia. 



London. 



I began my investigations in the British Museum in London, 

 a great treasure-house for fossil reptiles, to which I have long 

 made frequent pilgrimages. This time the Dinosaurs were 

 seen to better advantage than ever before, but of new or 

 unknown forms I found that few had been added to the collec- 

 tion since my visit two years ago ; and I consoled myself with 

 the other extinct Peptilia, and especially with the new fossil 

 birds and mammals from South America. 



St. Petersburg. 



In St. Petersburg I hoped to find many Dinosaurian remains, 

 as here had been brought together an abundance of fossil 

 treasures from various parts of the Russian Empire, which I 

 knew must contain many forms of this group. In the four 

 principal museums of the city, however, I could find no bones of 

 Dinosaurs on exhibition, nor could I learn from any of the 

 museum authorities that such remains had been recognized 

 among the specimens received, neither could I find any such 

 fossils myself among the debris of the collections, so often a 

 rich repository for new or inconspicuous specimens. This was 

 true, also, of the smaller collections visited, and I was at last 

 forced to admit that here, at least, the Dinosaurs of Russia, 

 like the snakes of Ireland, were conspicuous only by their 

 absence. 



* Abstract of Commuuication made to the National Academy of Sciences, 

 Boston Meeting, November 16th, 1897. 



