THE GEOLOGliCAL KECOiilJ lM:. 



Europe till recently only a few isolated bones or fragments of 

 skulls bad been discovered, but about five or six years ago a 

 rich deposit was found on the banks of the river Dwina in 

 ^N^orthern Kussia. Tn a large fissure of the rocks quantities 



Fig. 47. — J^lusaurus felinus (Order — Anomodontia). 

 From Trias (South Africa). Two-thirds nat. size. (B.M. Guide.) 



of nodules of very hard rock had been found, and being easy 

 to obtain, were broken up for mending roads; till Professor 

 Amalitzky from Warsaw, visiting the spot, found that each 

 of these nodules contained well-preserved fossils of extinct ani- 

 mals, which proved to be reptiles of the very same group as 

 those of South Africa. Some of these nodules contained a 

 skull; others contained the whole skeleton, these being some- 

 times eight feet long, and of strange forms corresponding to 

 the crushed or distorted body of the animal. Thenceforth 

 Professor Amalitzky devoted himself to the work of explora- 

 tion by the aid of a grant from the Imperial Academy of St. 

 Petersburg. The nodules are taken to Warsaw, where ihey 

 are carefully opened, and the fossilised bones extracted, 

 cleaned, and put together. Some of these are found to be 

 almost identical with those of South Africa; others, quite 

 distinct, though allied. Fig. 48 represents the skull of a huge 

 carnivorous reptile, which must have been about the same size 

 as the herbivorous Pariasauri fabundantly preserved in tho 

 nodules), upon which it doubtless preyed. As the skull is two 



