438 Sir R. I. Murchison on the 



Looking at the forest of Bialavieja* in Lithuania as the only locality 

 in which this species now exists, and seeing that it is not far from 

 the edge of the southern granitic steppe, we cannot avoid theorizing 

 on a contingency by which some of these creatures may possibly have 

 been preserved. That granitic steppe, the rocks of which we know 

 to be of the highest antiquity, since they have even afforded materials 

 for the construction of some adjacent silurian strata, is in many parts 

 so completely devoid of all superficial covering, and so entirely differs, 

 in that respect, from the thickly overspread tracts upon its north and 

 south, as to justify the inference that it was never depressed beneath 

 the waters since the beginning of palaeozoic era, but escaped the sub- 

 mersions which affected all the surrounding regions of Russia in 

 Europe. Some individuals of the Bos TJrus may therefore, we con- 

 ceive, have been dwellers in this granitic ridge, until the retirement 

 of the surrounding waters enabled them, or their descendants, to re- 

 people the new jungles and forests of the fresh formed ground ; and 

 thus we could explain, by reasoning from geological appearances, 

 how it happens that they are now found living in the forests of Li- 

 thuania. Attaching however, no great value to this speculation, 

 which may prove useless, if the living species is found to be different 



* Count V. Krasinski, the author of the " History of the Reformation 

 in Poland," prepared, at the request of our friend Colonel Jackson, a 

 very interesting account of this forest and its inhabitants, from which we 

 extract the following data. The forest of Bialawieza (Bialavieja) is in 

 the government of Grondno on the river Narevka, and lying between the 

 towns of Orla, Shereshef, and Prujani, occupies a space of about 29 German, 

 or 145 English square miles. Having been an ancient hunting ground of the 

 kings of Poland, it has been preserved in its wildest pristine state. The 

 Aurochs {Zubr in the Polish language) was always peculiar to Lithuania, 

 if not to this very forest. According to the earliest records, it was clearly 

 distinguished from the native wild ox or Tur (an animal possibly similar 

 to the wild ox of Chillingham in Northumberland), which appears to have 

 been much more common, even in the sixteenth century, than the Zubr or 

 Aurochs. An ancient picture in the possession of the last King of Poland, 

 represents King Ladislaus Jajellem presenting a live Zubr to the fathers of 

 the Council of Constance ! thus proving that it was very rare in the beginning 

 of the fifteenth century. (See also Mem. Descrip. sur la Foret de Biala- 

 wieza par le Baron de Brinnen ; published at Warsaw in 1828, at which 

 time, it was believed, that 875 heads of Zubrs were still living in the forest.) 



