WILLIS] TIEREA OOCIDA; SCORIA 51 



tionately broad, was reported by one of the natives employed by 

 Professor Amegliino for watching the coast and collecting fossils, to 

 exist off the barranca of Monte Hermoso, but it became exposed 

 only at the lowest tide and could not be examined. None of the 

 few observed cases in which the tierra cocida would be taken for a 

 fogon, or remnants of the same, was accompanied by the slightest 

 evidences of the presence of man; but burnt bones, carbon, and other 

 substances that might possibly be due to man have been reported as 

 found at or near fogones in other localities.^ 



The scoriae were very abundant on the gray playas, or denuded 

 flats, near the seashore northeast of the Arroyo Moro, the region 

 of Necochea. Farther inland, even on the playas, they were absent. 

 Many hundreds, in fact thousands, of specimens could have been 

 collected. They were fairly uniform in character, grayish-black, 

 porous, without sharp points or angles. They ranged in size, as far 

 as seen, from small bits to pieces as large as the two fists. Farther 

 south they were scarce, and on the coast between Rio Negro and 

 Puerto San Bias they were wholly absent, but the writer picked up 

 on the shore near San Bias an oval, water-worn piece of a different^ 

 clearly volcanic red scoria more than 12 inches long. 



On the whole, none of the evidence relating to tierra cocida and 

 scoriae seen in the Argentine Museums or in the field, has proven at all 

 convincing that these products, even if not directly volcanic, are due 

 to man's agency. Messrs. Wright and Fenner's report, which fol- 

 lows, bears out these impressions. 



The principal bibliographical references in connection with this 

 subject are as follows:^ 



Descalzi, N. Diario del descubrimiento del Rio Negro de Pat- 

 agones. Revista del Rio de la Plata, i, 1854, p. 97; and in Albar- 

 racm, S. J., Estudios generales sobre los rios Negro, etc., ii, Buenos 

 Aires, 1886, pp. 51, 63-64, 600-602. 



Heusser, J. C, and G. Claraz. Essais pour servir a une descrip- 

 tion physique et geognostique de la Province Argentine de Buenos- 

 Aires. Mem. Soc. Helvetique Sci. nat., xxi, Zurich, 1865, pp. 1-140. 



Ameghino, F. Nouveaux debris de I'homme et de son Industrie, 

 etc. Journal de Zoologie, iv, Paris, 1875, pp. 527-528. 



BuRMEiSTER, H. Description physique de la Republique Argen- 

 tine, II, Buenos Aires, 1876, pp. 178, 387. 



Ameghino, F. Catalogue special de la section anthropologique 

 et paleontologique de la Republique Argentine, Paris, 1878. 



1 See Ameghino, F., Enumeration chronologique et critique des notices sur les terres cuites et les scories 

 anthropiques, etc.; in Anal. Mus. Nac. Buenos Aires, xx (ser. iii, t. xui), 1911, pp. 39-80 (separate, 1910). 

 2 Principally after Amegliino. For additional minor references, see that author. 



