1 86 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS! NARRATIVE. 



that he did not accompany us when we went for the deer, and since he 

 seldom went far from camp, we felt little further concern. Hardly had we 

 seated ourselves for our evening meal, however, when we were attracted 

 by his peculiar antics in front of our tent. On emerging from the latter 

 a glance at the dog showed only too plainly that he had been visiting 

 down the canon and had partaken of a portion of those choice morsels 

 which we had prepared for other visitors. Indeed, he was already suffer- 

 ing such violent spasms that Mr. Colburn begged me to shoot him and 

 thus end his misery. I was only too glad to comply with the request, since 

 it involved only the consummation of an act which would, I fear, have been 

 executed on any one of several previous occasions, but for a knowledge of 

 the affection which had come to exist between Mr. Colburn and the dog. 

 On the day following my return to camp I started with fresh horses to 

 explore the country to the northeast. Here I found extensive and impor- 

 tant deposits belonging to the Santa Cruzian formation, rich in fossil 

 remains. These deposits lie to the westward of the area of igneous and 

 crystalline rocks, and between the latter and the Andes. After several 

 days spent in this region without discovering any trace of the Pyro- 

 therium beds or fauna, I returned to camp and again set out to examine 

 the region to the north and northwest, and lying between our camp and 

 Lake Buenos Aires. For several days during this trip my work was 

 much interfered with by the great quantity of smoke from the forest fires 

 in the Andes, lighted, as I afterwards learned, by members of the Argen- 

 tine and Chilian Boundary Commissions. So dense was this smoke that for 

 several days I was unable to see in any direction for a greater distance 

 than a mile or two, and it was quite impossible for me to distinguish 

 promising localities and exposures from a distance, or to determine any- 

 thing definite relating to the geography of the country. On account of 

 this interference with my work in the region about Lake Buenos Aires, I 

 did not spend as much time as I should like to have done in the country 

 lying immediately south of the lake. From Lake Buenos Aires I returned 

 to some important outcrops in the Santa Cruzian beds lying to the south 

 ward between the base of the Andes and the basalt region of the interior. 

 In these exposures I spent a part of two days collecting fossils and study- 

 ing the geology of the region. During the last night passed in these bad 

 lands there was a considerable fall of snow. This caused me to decide on 

 returning to camp, which I did on the following day, April twenty-ninth. 



