472 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



period included between the years 1827 and 1830 bears the name of the gran seco, or the 

 great drought, in the state of Buenos Ayres ; and on account of the light it throws on 

 the cases where vast numbers of animals of all kinds have been found imbedded together, 

 Mr. Darwin's record of it has great interest. " During this time,'' he remarks, " so little 

 rain fell that the vegetation, even to the thistles, failed ; the brooks were dried up, and the 

 whole country assumed the appearance of a dusty high road. This was especially the 

 case in the northern part of the province of Buenos Ayres and the southern part of St. Fe. 

 Very great numbers of birds, wild animals, cattle, and horses perished from the want of 

 food and water. A man told me that the deer used to come into his courtyard to the 

 well, which he had been obliged to dig to supply his own family with water ; and that the 

 partridges had hardly strength to fly away when pursued." Captain Owen, in the account 

 of his surveying voyage, relates a similar effect of drought on the elephants, at Benguela, 

 on the west coast of Africa. They invaded the town in a body, to get possession of the 

 wells, not being able to procure any water in the country. A desperate battle ensued 

 between the inhabitants, amounting to nearly three thousand, and the animals. It 

 terminated in the defeat of the latter, but not until they had killed one man, and maimed 

 a great number. Dr. Malcolmson also states, that during a drought in India, the wild 

 animals entered the tents of the troops at Ellore, and that a hare drank out of a vessel 

 held by the adjutant of the regiment. 



" The lowest estimation of the loss of cattle in the province of Buenos Ayres alone, was 

 taken at one million head. A proprietor at San Pedro had previously to these years 

 20,000 cattle ; at the end not one remained. San Pedro is situated in the middle of the 

 finest country ; and even now abounds again with animals ; yet during the latter part of 

 the gran seco, live cattle were brought in vessels for the consumption of the inhabitants. 

 The animals roused from their estancias, and wandering far southward, were mingled 

 together in such multitudes, that a government commission was sent from Buenos Ayres 

 to settle the disputes of the owners. Sir Woodbine Parish informed me of another and very 

 curious source of dispute ; the ground being so long dry, -such quantities of dust were 

 blown about, that in this open country the landmarks became obliterated, and people 

 could not tell the limits of their estates. I was informed by an eye-witness that the 

 cattle in herds of thousands rushed into the Parana, and being exhausted by hunger, they 

 were unable to crawl up the muddy banks, and thus were drowned. The arm of the 

 river which runs by San Pedro was so full of putrid carcasses, that the master of a vessel 

 told me that the smell rendered it quite impassable. / Without doubt several hundred 

 thousand animals thus perished in the river ; their bodies when putrid were seen floating 

 down the stream ; and many in all probability were deposited in the estuary of the Plata. 

 All the small rivers became highly saline^ and this caused the death of vast numbers in 

 particular spots ; for when an animal drinks of such water it does not recover. Azara 

 describes the fury of the wild horses on a similar occasion, rushing into the marshes, those 

 which arrived first being overwhelmed and crushed by those which followed. He adds, 

 that more than once he has seen the carcasses of upwards of a thousand wild horses thus 

 destroyed. I noticed that the smaller streams in the Pampas were paved with a breccia 

 of bones, but this probably is the effect of a gradual increase, rather than of the destruction 

 at any one period. Subsequently to the drought of 1827 to 1832, a very rainy season 

 followed, which caused great floods. Hence it is almost certain that some thousands of the 

 skeletons were buried by the deposits of the very next year* What would be the opinion 

 of a geologist, viewing such an enormous collection of bones, of all kinds of animals and 

 of all ages, thus embedded in one thick earthy mass ? Would he not attribute it to a 

 flood having swept over the surface of the land, rather than to the common order of 

 things ? * 



