RUSSIA IN EUROPE 
AND 
THE URAL MOUNTAINS. 
CHAPTER I. 
INTRODUCTION. 
Ongirt, and Progress of the Pakeozoic Classification of the British Isles explained.— 
Its recent extension to various parts of Western Europe , America, fyc. — Its applica- 
tion to Russia, Scandinavia and the Ural Mountains, the chief object of the authors 
in this work. — General outline of the contents of the work. 
One of the great objects which geologists have of late years been striving to 
attain, is a knowledge of the order of the older sedimentary strata and of the 
organic remains they respectively contain. 
Among the questions involved in this inquiry, several at once present themselves. 
Are these older rocks, for instance, made up of various formations as distinguish- 
able from each other by their imbedded fossils, as certain younger deposits which 
had previously been studied? Is a regular succession to be traced downwards 
from formations, the position and contents of which were well-known, to other 
undescribed beds of far higher antiquity ? Can we, by such a process, lay open 
the earliest vestiges of animal life, and amid palaeozoic forms, trace backwards 
primaeval history to a protozoic type ? And if so, can we separate such protozoic 
B 
