ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 141 



wild guanaco, from the Peruvian Cordilleras to Tierra del Fuego, 

 sometimes in herds of 500, has been favored by the circumstance 

 that these animals can swim with great ease from island to island, 

 so that the Patagonian fiords offer no obstacle to their wanderings. 

 (See the pleasing descriptions by Darwin, in his Journal, 1845, 

 p. 66.) 



South of the Gila River, which, together with the Rio Colorado, 

 enters the Calif ornian Gulf or Mar de Cortes, stand, in the solitude 

 of the Steppe, the enigmatical ruins of the Aztec Palace, called by 

 the Spaniards las Casas grandes. When the Aztecs, about the 

 year 1160, came from the unknown land of Aztlan to Anahuac, 

 they settled themselves for a time on the banks of the G-ila. The 

 Franciscan monks, Garces and Font, are the latest travellers who 

 have visited the Casas grandes, and they did so in 1773. They 

 stated the ruins to extend over above a square German mile (16 

 English square miles). The whole plain is strewed with fragments 

 of painted pottery. The principal palace (if a house built of un- 

 burnt clay can be so designated) is 447 English feet long and 277 

 English feet broad. (See a rare work printed in Mexico, and 

 entitled Cronica serafica y apostdlica del Colegio de Propaganda 

 Fide de la Santa Cruz de Quere"taro por Fr. Juan Domingo Arri- 

 civita.) 



The Taye" of California, as drawn by Father Venegas, appears to 

 differ little from the Ovis musimon of the Old Continent. The same 

 animal is also seen on the " Stony Mountains," near the sources of 

 the Peace River. Very different from it, on the other hand, is the 

 small white and black spotted goat-like creature which feeds near 

 the Missouri and Arkansas rivers. The synonymy of Antilope fur- 

 cifer, A. tememazama of Smith, and Ovis montana, is still very un- 

 determined. 



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( 37 ) p. 34. -" The cultivation of farinaceous grasses. " 

 The original habitat of the farinaceous grasses is wrapped in the 

 same obscurity as that of the domestic animals which have accom- 

 panied man since his earliest migrations. The German word for 

 corn, " Getraide," has been ingeniously derived by Jacob Grimm 

 from the old German gitragidi, getregede. " It is as it were the 



