12 



for comparison, resulted in such sad occurrences as ttie giving of 

 wholly faulty positions to more or less incomplete human crania and 

 ascribing the apparent differences which they presented from more 

 properly posed complete modern skulls to morphological inferiority; 

 in giving undue weight to various actual features which, with a more 

 extensive view, would have been seen to be well within the limits 

 of variation of the same parts in present man and in particular the 

 Indian ; and above all in the failure in numerous cases to recognize 

 an artificial deformation of the skull with the consequent mistake of 

 the results of such deformation, particularly the lowered forehead, for 

 marks of anthropological inferiority of the specimen, and even regar- 

 ding them as characteristics of distinct species of humanity. 



All the above points are dealt with in detail in the main report 

 of the writer and his collaborators on this subject, but it may not be 

 amiss to give here just a few concrete instances illustrating the 

 conditions. 



The Argentinian writers do not hitherto clearly distinguish the 

 recent and the Pleistocene in the pampas deposits, everything beneath 

 the vegetal layer being not seldom regarded as a part of the Pampean 

 formation and as of Pleistocene or older age; yet the upper and 

 sometimes large portions of the deposit are evidently of a very recent 

 origin, the paleontological remains which they hold being of secon- 

 dary inclusion. Many uncertainties exist also in the recognition of 

 the Tertiary as distinguished from the Quaternary Pampean deposits. 

 One of the most important strata in relation to ancient man, the so- 

 called "Interensenadean" of AMEOfflNO, could not be traced at all by 

 the geologist of the Smithsonian Expedition, and what was pointed 

 to repeatedly by Ameghino himself as representing this layer proved 

 to be a modern sea short agglomerate of shell detritus and sand, 

 containing remnants of molluscs of living species only. And at 

 Ovejero, what was represented as a Pleistocene Superior Pampean 

 bed was found to be nothing but a wind blown deposit of no great age. 



In a number of instances, particularly at "Necochea" and Arroyo del 

 Moro, the human remains recovered represented clearl}^ burials and 

 hence recent introductions into the earth; yet they were described 

 as contemporaneous with the deposits which they barely penetrated. 



Mineralization of the human bones was taken invariably as a 

 proof of the great age of the specimen, notwithstanding the well es- 

 tablished fact that such alteration depends for more upon the envi- 



