102 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



Santa Cruz, and Rio Gallegos. After spending a few uncomfortable 

 days at Gallegos, experiencing many difficulties getting our camping 

 outfit together, and breaking our four South American horses to the 

 use of the farm wagon which we shipped from II^Tew York, we at last 

 proceeded happily on our way to our first collecting ground, which 

 lay directly across the river from us. As we drove along the south 

 side of the river for a distance of some fifteen miles, the blufPs of the 

 north side were plainly to be seen. These are composed of the Santa 

 Cruz formation, with a capping of the ever present shingle, as illus- 

 trated in plate IX. Crossing the river at Weir Aike, we reached, 

 after a drive of fifteen miles, the estancia of Mr. H. S. Felton, where 

 we were very hospitably received. Here we made our first camp in 

 Patagonia (see plate VIII), and for two months collected in the re- 

 markably rich but steep bluffs forming the south escarpment of the 

 river. Here I secured a great number of the smaller mammals, a large 

 part of which must be collected during low tide at the base of the 

 cliffs and on the clayey bed of the river, which are continually being 

 eroded away by the constant wash of the incoming and outgoing tides. 

 In this latitude the tides reach the enormous rise and fall of over 

 fifty feet. In the photograph, plate X, showing the bluffs at low tide, 

 the high-tide mark can be plainly seen about twenty feet from the 

 base of the cliff. These bluffs at high tide are shown in plate XI. 



In March we moved our camp to the estancia of Mr. John Rudd, 

 at Cape Fairweather, two days later moving to a point two miles 

 north of Cape Fairweatlier, on the coast of the broad Atlantic. Here 

 an interesting sight met our view. Away off to the southwest 

 glistened the snow-capped tops of a high range of hills, while at the 

 foot of the bluffs, which here attain the height of 400 to 450 feet, 

 rolled the huge breakers of the ocean. The waves at each spring 

 tide undermine the very hills we stood upon, while again at low tide 

 the receding waters leave a beach of from three-fourths to one and 

 one-half miles wide, at many points washed clear of loose sand, to 

 the hard greensand and clay-beds of the Santa Cruz. This makes it one 

 of the most unique collecting grounds imaginable, and in many in- 

 stances beautiful little fossil skulls are left on a raised base of matrix, 

 standing out like clear-cut cameo. 



The mode of collecting in this locality differs greatly from the 

 methods which must be used in the semi-arid region of western Kan- 

 sas. Clad in oilskins and with the indispensable rubber boots on, one 

 frequently has to dig out a fine fossil in some little pool of water 

 formed by a slight depression in the surface. The contrast between 

 this and the chalk of western Kansas can be better imagined than de- 

 scribed, although I have very vivid recollections of many such occur- 

 rences. From Cape Fairweather north for thirty miles the beach 



