396 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



Although, you ask for no information with regard to birds, it may be in- 

 teresting to some of your readers to know that fragments of two specimens 

 of such fragile things as birds' eggs have been obtained from the same de- 

 posits : one, in point of size and thickness of shell, would correspond, if 

 • entire, to that of a goose ; the other to that of a moor-hen. 



I also wish to place upon record the finding of a very perfect and cha- 

 racteristic flint-implement in the "higher level gravel" of Fisherton, on 

 Monday last. It is pretty evenly stained of a pale ochreous yellow, and 

 bears evidence of having had some rough knocks from its travelling com- 

 panions. This is the first example found, after a patient search by myself 

 and others of nearly five years. Surely, after this, brother-geologists need 

 never despair of finding flint-implements, although, like myself, they may 

 be often heartily tired of bootless expeditions. — Yours very truly, H. P. 

 Blackmoee, M.D. 



Salisbury, September llth, 1863. 



["We have received a drawing of the implement. — Ed. Geol.] 



Mammalian Remains in Russia. — The following are translated notes 

 from Georgi's Hist. Nat. Russia, vol.iii. : — I. Decayed human bones, found 

 in the graves of former settlers, together with metallic vessels, also 

 with remains of burnt corpses ; for instance, on the Yenisei, near Erasno- 

 jarsk, in Dauria ; on the Ingoda ; in the ITral and Kolywan mountains, 

 in the mines of the ancients. Dried human bones, partially petrified, are 

 found in lime- and chalk-pits near some river-banks in Podolia (Guetard) ; 

 on the Swiaja of the Volga, on the brook Birjutsch, in clay (Lep.) ; on the 

 Ik of the Kama, in sand} 7 mountain-green. 



Exhumed elephant-bones, R. momotowa (Kosti), mammoths' bones, 

 skulls, jawbones, fangs, dorsal vertebrse, shin- and hip-bones, have been 

 found in Kussia, and especially in Siberia, for ages ; and they were consi- 

 dered as the bones of a monstrous kind of animal, living under the earth 

 and dying by contact with the air, and which very likely might have been 

 the Behemoth of Job. The Russian academician. M. Du Vernoi, showed 

 first that these bones belonged to elephants. When, in accordance with 

 the order of Peter the Great, in 1722, all fossil and other curiosities were 

 sent to the Imperial Museum of St. Petersburg, everybody considered 

 these bones to be curious ; and examples were thus brought there, together 

 with other fossil bones, from many districts of Prussia, in such abundance 

 that they speedily filled the extensive vaults of the museum. In the 

 greater part of the Siberian, and in some of the Russian rivers, they are 

 washed out from their loosened clay, marl, lime, and sand, and earth of 

 the shores. They are more or less efflorescent, soft, partly earthy, — some 

 of them falling to pieces, — greyish, whitish, bluish ; and some hard, and of 

 a fresh appearance ; and those are especially well preserved which occur 

 in the Arctic swamps {tundra). For the most part these bones were 

 found scattered singly, but sometimes also there were many together, al- 

 though but very seldom whole carcasses occur. The museum now receives 

 them but very sparingly, as they are less cared for. 



II. On the bones, and places where they were found. 1. In Russia. 

 Many elephant-bones, on the right bank of the Don, near Kostizi ; on the 

 Volga, near Kusmodimjarsk ; in the chasms near Nischnii ]N"owogorod; on 

 the Swiaja of the Volga, on the bank of the brook Birjutsch (Lep.; Pall.) ; 

 on the mouth of the Swiaja ; on the bank of the great Irgis, on the left of 

 the Volga. An elephant molar tooth on the shore of the White Sea, also 

 on the Dwina. Elephant-bones, in Permia, on the bank of the Babka; the 

 Sylwa, near the foundry of Jugewskoi Sawod ; one 9 feet long ; on the 

 Meschowaja Utka of the Tschussowaja, near Wisinio Utkinskoi Sawod, 



