Research of antediluvian monsters in the Vologda province

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Studying the history of Russian paleontology is curious. This is not just a white spot, but a real white desert. There are almost no books, films and TV shows on this topic. Even about the exciting excavations of the remains of lizards in the Russian North, which were carried out at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries by Professor Vladimir Prokhorovich Amalitsky, only a few small articles have been written, although on the basis of this story it is possible to make more than one film and write more than one book.

Only now the publishing house "Fiton XXI" is publishing the first full-fledged biography of Amalitsky with a detailed story about his life and work, as well as the fate of his collection. I would like to believe that this is the first swallow, which will be followed by other publications about Russian paleontology. We bring to your attention the chapter "The Pit of State Importance" - it is dedicated to the second year of Amalitsky's excavations at the Sokolki site in the Vologda province.

Remains of terrestrial vertebrates are rarely preserved in the geological record. VP Amalitsky wrote that each fossil bone should be considered "a historical monument of the previous life."

Such monuments have not only scientific, but also quite tangible commercial value. Collectors, patrons, museums paid a lot of money to get interesting samples.

The Milan Museum bought the skeleton of a giant sloth-megatherium from Argentina for 40 thousand francs (20 thousand royal rubles). The extraction, delivery and dissection of the pareiasaurus skeleton from South Africa cost the British Museum 4,000 pounds (40,000 rubles). The imprint of the "first bird" of Archeopteryx found in Germany was very expensive. The Ministry of Culture was unable to provide the Berlin Museum of Natural History with 20 thousand marks, which the seller demanded. The scientists were rescued by the owner of steel works V. Siemens. He bought the print and donated it to the museum. Archeopteryx was exhibited in a separate room, like "Mona Lisa", and the specific name was given to him in honor of Siemens (Archeopteryx simensii).

In addition to bones and prints, traces and eggs of extinct animals were sold.

The eggs of a huge bird, aepyornis, cost 2 thousand rubles each, but they rarely went on sale. One French scientist for seven years tried to buy such an egg and colorfully described how the natives get them: “They probe the silt in the swampy deltas of some rivers with their spears until they come across a solid object. In most cases, this is a simple stone, but nevertheless they must dive into the water, dig up the silt and see if it is an egg or not. It should be noted that there are a lot of crocodiles in these rivers, which sometimes eat the diver. This is very frightening for other divers, and therefore it is always very difficult to find people for such searches, even for a lot of money."

As soon as it became known how many skeletons in the North of Russia Amalitsky found, he received offers from Western colleagues about joint excavations.

The Munich Academy of Sciences promised a large loan, and without any special obligations: Amalitsky could decide for himself what to leave in Russia, what to give to Germany. Similar proposals were made by the British Museum, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, and the Americans.

However, the St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists believed that the excavations should be continued under their supervision. Amalitsky found himself in an awkward situation. The discovery completely belonged to him, he could work with anyone, but he felt a moral obligation to the society of natural scientists.

The decision was not easy for him. “I can't write anything about myself. I am going to Petersburg to make a report and I am taking two heads. Until now, nothing is known, or, better to say, nothing has been undertaken on the issue of monetary benefits, and meanwhile “ours”, that is, the cabinet ones, forced me to refuse the very flattering offer of Zittel, who offered 2000 marks from the Bavarian Academy of Sciences to continuation of excavations on condition that only secondary doublets are returned to him. Having abandoned Cittel, I made an ill-wisher in him, which is very sad, because the excavation in our Academy of Sciences caused me some trouble.

I have to refuse the help of such institutions that can really be useful to me, in the hope of a Society from which one can hardly expect anything. So, until now, my discoveries only bring me a lot of anxiety,”wrote Amalitsky in December 1899.

The situation was resolved unexpectedly and quickly.

Arriving in St. Petersburg to make a report on his findings, Amalitsky discovered that he was right: “My excavations increased an even more hostile attitude towards me from non-university students and caused quite offensive skepticism even among university students. I had to make amends for my involuntary guilt and walk with bows and guilt. This is not only my impression, but also very many others."

He made a report at a general meeting of the Society of Naturalists, then spoke separately before the patron saint of the Society, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich. He was imbued with the passion of Amalitsky, promised support and so energetically began to petition for an allowance for excavations that four days later, on January 14, the emperor signed the highest permission to release 50 thousand rubles to the Society of Naturalists. for the extraction of bones: 10 thousand annually for five years from 1900 to 1904. “This is all the more surprising since the society itself asked only 30,000 rubles. It is even more surprising that the money (10,000 rubles) has already been allocated for this year,”wrote Amalitsky.

The Society of Naturalists announced an emergency convocation, at which a notice from the Minister of Finance about the emperor's permission was read. The news was greeted with applause. In the report of the meeting, this was stated in the following words: “This is the HIGHEST attention and the HIGHEST mercy that the St. Petersburg was awarded. The [St. Petersburg] Society of Naturalists entrusts it with the obligation to justify the trust placed in it and to use all efforts and all efforts to perform in the best possible way the work for which the means have been granted to the Society by the tsar's generosity."

Annual 10 thousand rubles. were a hefty amount.

The wages of workers in the St. Petersburg province in those years amounted to 20-30 rubles. per month, on average in the country - 16 rubles. Professors earned 200-300 rubles. per month, that is, about 3 thousand per year.

But, when compared with similar events, Amalitsky's excavations will not seem too expensive. One of the northern expeditions of Baron Toll cost the treasury 60 thousand rubles. For the delivery of the mammoth carcass from the Kolyma in 1901, the state issued 16,300 rubles, and another 15,000 rubles for the installation of the skeleton with the stuffed animal and their scientific processing.

However, both the amount of the allowance and the very fact of its receipt were unusual for Russian geology. Amalitsky did not even manage to spend all the money: in the first two years alone, he saved 2,500 rubles.

Together with the allowance, Amalitsky was charged with the burden of responsibility, which he was constantly reminded of by the Society of Naturalists and personally by its chairman A. A. Inostrantsev. “Now it's up to me to justify the trust of the Sovereign, as stated in the Grand Duke's rescript. I am simply exhausted under this responsibility, because now the question has been put bluntly: “You have been given more than what you asked for, and therefore justify yourself!” The foreigners require energy from me, and I am terribly afraid to rush so as not to get confused from the first step, but that's why I'm terribly worried, he wrote …

In the summer of 1900, Amalitsky returned to Sokolki and offered the village of Efimovskaya to sign a long-term contract for the lease of land. The peasants gathered for a gathering, discussed the proposal and allowed Amalitsky to "excavate bones and other fossil remains" in the Sokolki area for 1 ruble 25 kopecks per square fathom of land per year. They pledged to "not allow anyone else to carry out any excavations" in Sokolki until Amalitsky had finished all the work. "This verdict" was sealed with signatures, the assistant to the volost foreman put a seal on the document and assured it at the zemstvo chief.

The end of May turned out to be rainy, even the rivers overflowed their banks, but by the time Amalitsky arrived, the weather cleared up, there were no showers, no thunderstorms, no heat, no hurricanes. The weather was fine. The men willingly went to work for him. “There were cases when peasants from very distant villages asked for work, explaining their request by the interest of the cause. The work went on nervously, lively, merrily and “family”, as the peasants said, that is, amicably, Amalitsky recalled.

Over the summer, fifty workers worked on the excavation. There was a story among paleontologists that Amalitsky paid excavators three kopecks a day and gave out a glass of vodka. This is not true. According to the reports, the salaries were a hundred times higher, and the vodka was not supposed to.

Every day Amalitsky spent about a hundred rubles to pay for the work of excavators. In general, for the season 3, 5 thousand. On holidays and Sundays, excavations were not carried out.

By county standards, Amalitsky paid very well. After spending a month on the excavation, the peasant could earn twenty to thirty rubles. And the prices here were as follows: a pood (16, 38 kg) of rye flour cost 1 ruble, a pound (0.4 kg) of cow butter - 28 kopecks, a pood of meat - 3 rubles, a pood of cod - 2, 6 rubles, chicken eggs for a penny thing. For a monthly salary, Amalitsky's employee could buy 3 thousand eggs or 160 kilograms of beef.

In 1900, Amalitsky greatly increased the excavation area. In the first year, it was 100 m2. Now Amalitsky asked for an excavation of 350 m2 and wrote in the report that the work went on a more grandiose scale.

The upper hard layer of sandstone was blown up with gunpowder for speed, and soon nodules appeared under the shovels and crowbars. Amalitsky decided to leave them on the surface of the excavation and was in no hurry to put them in boxes. He wanted "to formulate an understanding of their mutual relationship and the primary occurrence of bones at the bottom of the pool."

The richest areas were at the northern edge of the lens. Here they found two large skeletons of pareiasaurs with such "crowded bones" that "each of them represented, in general, one shapeless, with a very bizarre character, nodule."

The "smart Russian workers", as one journalist called them, quickly learned to distinguish between pangolins and recognized them already in the nodules. The appearance of the pareiasaurs caused joy, jokes and wit. They were greeted as old acquaintances, the remnants of other lizards left the peasants indifferent.

Half of the summer passed when an important event happened at the excavation site.

Alexander Pavlovich Chekhov, the brother of the writer Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, spoke about him colorfully. He published two large articles about Amalitsky, making a funny blunder. In one article he wrote that the important day turned out to be wonderful, in the other - that the day was rainy.

A steamer suddenly stopped at Sokolkov's, which had never happened before. A local bishop came down the gangway. With the help of ropes, a crowd of people helped him climb the steep cliff to the excavation. The bishop sailed to personally see the excavations, about which there was a lot of talk in the area. He talked with Amalitsky, inquired about the progress of the work and the antediluvian monsters. Leaving, he wished Amalitsky success and gave the workers an archpastoral blessing.

The bishop was not the only guest. Local officials, teachers, curious peasants came to the excavation site. Village boys constantly came running, there are many of them in Amalitsky's photographs, they are dressed in old jackets belted with ropes, they have caps on their heads, on their feet are oversized boots. Only the women avoided the excavation and tried not to walk by, especially at night. “Boyatsa,” the peasants explained to Amalitsky.

In 1900, excavations continued for two months. Amalitsky extracted more than a thousand poods of nodules (about 26 tons) from lentils: the same amount as in 1899. But on the whole, the successes seemed to him more modest: in 1899 this volume was collected from an area three times smaller. "Bone crowding and relative fossil wealth" hasn't gotten that big. After a cursory examination of the new nodules, Amalitsky counted "15 more or less intact skeletons" in them.

The location seemed inexhaustible.

Top photo - Pareiasaurus skull nodule. Photo by V. P. Amalitsky