GIANT SLOTHS AND ARMADILLOS. 185 



they were engulfed. This idea is strengthened by information 

 supphed to Mr. Darwin when in these parts (recorded in his 

 /ournal). An eye-witness told him that during the gran seco, or 

 great drought, the cattle in herds of thousands rushed into the 

 Parana, and, being exhausted by hunger and thirst, were unable 

 to crawl up the muddy banks, and so were drowned. 



In the last great drought, from 1830 to 1832, it is probable 

 (according to calculations made) that the number of animals that 

 died was over one million and a half. The borders of all the 

 lakes and streamlets in the province were long afterwards white 

 with their bones. 



In the year 1882 reports were published of the discovery of 

 large footprints — supposed to be human — in a certain sandstone 

 near Carson, Nevada, U.S. The locality was the yard of the State 

 prison, and the tracks were uncovered in quarrying stone for 

 building purposes. Many different kinds of tracks were found, 

 some of which were made by an animal allied to the elephant ; 

 some resembled those of the horse and deer ; others seem to 

 have been made by a wolf, and yet others by large birds. Those 

 supposed to have been made by human giants were in six series, 

 each with alternate right and left tracks. The stride is from two 

 and a half to over three feet, and each footprint is about eighteen 

 inches long. Now, those who believed these tracks to be human 

 must have found it hard to explain how a giant with a foot some 

 eighteen inches long had a stride no longer than that of an 

 ordinary man of to-day, to say nothing of the fact that the straddle 

 was eighteen to nineteen inches ! For these and other reasons 

 Professor Marsh has exploded the idea of their having been made 

 by men, and gave good reasons to show that they were probably 

 made by a giant sloth, such as the Mylodon above mentioned, 

 the remains of which have been discovered in the same strata. 

 They agree in size, in stride, and in width between the right and. 

 left impressions, very closely with the tracks that a Mylodon 

 would have made, and it seems that those of the fore feet were 



