112 HUNTING EXTINCT ANIMALS 



a start there, and educate the series of little Halls whose 

 physiques Patagonia had already made as hard as nails. 



Next day we worked up and down the barrancas looking 

 for the ever-elusive bones, but found that like the clays 

 by Mazaredo, these were also baked. As we gradually 

 worked down the stream we came into lower and lower 

 layers which were more and more baked, until about noon 

 we landed on the top of the lava sheet which had done the 

 baking. 



Just before lunch we spied a goose acting suspiciously, 

 and soon found her nest with five eggs in it. They were 

 nearly fresh and we gathered them all. For lunch we had 

 bread and tea in which while hot we each stirred a goose 

 egg, which made an unexpectedly good combination. 

 We saved the remaining eggs and the egg shells, which 

 were tied up in a handkerchief and I carried them for the 

 next three days slung around my neck, getting four of them 

 safely back home. During the afternoon we came down ta 

 the "Eye of Waters," a wide lagoon-like expansion of the 

 river, where the water was shallow and full of reedy 

 islands, and where hundreds of ducks, geese, and flamingoes 

 were paddling about. They were wise, however, and kept 

 well out from the shores or over the lagoon, where they 

 were safe, as we could not come out into the water on ac- 

 count of the deep mud about the margin. 



Here we saw the finest contact possible between two 

 formations. The lava had welled up from some throat or 

 seam, and coming to the light clay formation had lifted 

 it on its molten surface as if it were floating : then the lava 

 had pushed its way for miles under the clay layer, baking 

 the lower layers completely and the upper ones gradually 

 less, but afifecting them for fully 250 feet up. The basal 

 layers of the clay, where they came in direct contact with 

 the lava, were broken, crumpled, and twisted in every 

 shape. It was a geological phenomenon worth coming all 

 the way to see, but of course the sort of thing we could only 



