A Trip to Mar del Plata 



209 



brought together during the time in which those 

 eminent scholars, Dr. Burmeister and Dr. Carlos Berg, 

 were the directors of that museum. The mounted 

 skeletons of the great armadillo-like mammals of the 

 Pampean beds, of the huge ground-sloths, of Toxodon, 

 Macrauchenia, and other beasts, which once inhabited 



Fig. 20. Skeleton of Toxodon burmeisteri Giebel. 3 - nat. size. 



Argentina, constitute a very imposing display as they 

 are exhibited in the halls at La Plata. One of the most 

 interesting of these creatures was the Macrauchenia, an 

 animal which combined in itself many curious anatomi- 

 cal features, not to say inconsistencies. I was particu- 

 larly interested in examining the collection of the 

 remains of various species of Toxodon. On the out- 

 ward voyage a young American man of science, who is 

 in the employment of the Brazilian government, came 

 on board at Bahia, being on his way to Rio de Janeiro. 

 We struck up an acquaintance, and he reported to me 

 that he had found in the interior of the Province of 

 Bahia a large quantity of the fossil remains of a number 

 of extinct animals. They had been dug up at a water- 

 hole, which was being cleaned out by workmen, and he 



