2 9 o EXTINCT MONSTERS 



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. 



It does not seem probable that the small sloths of to-day are 

 descended from these big ones ; but it may be that some of the 

 arboreal forms forsook their trees and took to the ground. But 

 nobody can say why they became so enormous. 



There can now be no doubt that in the southern part of 

 South America the giant sloths survived until the human period ; 

 for in the Argentine Eepublic their remains have been found 

 together with human bones and stone weapons. Dr. A. Smith 

 Woodward, the Keeper of Geology in the Natural History 

 Museum, thus describes this highly interesting find. " The most 

 important discoveries, however, which appear to prove this survival, 

 were made in 1897, and subsequent years, by Dr. F. P. Moreno, 

 Dr. E. Hauthal, Baron Erland Nordenskiold, and others, in a 

 cavern near Consuelo Cove, Last Hope Inlet, Patagonia, between 

 the 51st and 52nd degrees of south latitude. Here, in an abso- 

 lutely dry and powdery deposit on the floor of the large cavern, 

 were found numerous broken bones of several individuals of a 

 ground-sloth, Grypotherium, which was nearly as large as 

 Mylodon, and only differed from the latter in minor features. 

 With the bones were several pieces of skin, evidently of the 

 same animal, which showed marks of tools, and seemed to have 

 been stripped off the carcase by man. There were also large 

 lumps of excrement, besides masses of cut grass, which may have 

 been intended for fodder. With the Grypotherium were found 



