350 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES 



taken place at such long intervals and by such slow 

 degrees as hardly to interfere with the condition of 

 things obtaining at the time.* A long succession of 

 animals nearly allied to, but in many cases quite dis- 

 tinct from, its present inhabitants, dwelt on this rising 

 continent ; and corresponding groups seem to have 

 existed ever since the first elevation of the country, 

 fragments of them being embedded in the gravel and 

 other deposits at the mouths of the great rivers. 



Throughout the whole of Brazil, and in the pro- 

 vinces of La Plata and Buenos Ay res, remains of the 

 extinct quadrupeds formerly tenanting these districts 

 are occasionally met with, and are sometimes not only 

 abundant, but preserved in the most wonderful state 

 of perfection. Some of these skeletons exhibit nearly 

 every bone of the animal ; the strong cuirasses of 

 others have scarcely a fragment removed from its true 

 position ; and these are found on the banks of the 

 rivers, and in the adjacent mud, while numerous 

 detached bones occur in the caverns in Brazil, and 

 are distributed as widely and buried as safely as the 

 bones of elephants or hyaenas in the corresponding 

 places of deposit in England and Europe. We have 

 but to examine the fragments, and re-construct the 

 animals, to learn the zoological condition of the great 

 South American continent during the tertiary period, 

 which indeed may there be regarded as rather passing 

 away, than actually past. 



But, first of all, let us consider the nature of the 

 country itself in which these remains are found ; and, 



* An account of these will be found in Mr. Darwin's valuable work on 

 the " Geology of South America," published while these sheets were pass- 

 ing through the press. 



