396 
TUE GEOLOGIST. 
Altliougli 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. 
Salishvri/, Septemher 11th, 1863. 
[We have received a drawing of the implement. — Ed. Geol.] 
Mammalian Eemains in Eussia. — The following are translated notes 
from Georgi's Hist. ^N'at. Eussia, 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 Krasno- 
jarsk, in Dauria ; on the Ingoda ; in the Ural and Koly wan 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 sandy mountain-green. 
Exhumed elephant-bones, H. momotoiva (Kosti), mammoths' bones, 
skulls, jawbones, fangs, dorsal vertebrae, shin- and hip-bones, have been 
found in Eussia, 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 Eussian 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 Eussia, 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 Eussian 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 Eussia. 
Many elephant-bones, on the right bank of the Don, near Kostizi ; on the 
Volga, near Kusmodimjarsk ; in the chasms near Kischnii jNTowogorod; on 
the Swiaja of the Volga, on the bank of the brook Birjulsch (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 JugeT\-skoi Sawod ; one 9 feet long ; on the 
Meschowaja Utka of the Tschussowaja, near Wisimo Utkinskoi Sawod, 
