188 BUREAU OP AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 52 



And shortly afterward (1875) Burmeister expresses liimself in 

 much the same vein as Moreno: 



"Some collectors have mentioned fossil remains of man extracted 

 from the Pampean deposits, and they have even shown some of 

 these to me, representing them as found in connection with frag- 

 ments of Megatherium, Glyptodon, and other fossils of the antedilu- 

 vian fauna of the pampa. I frankly confess that I do not find 

 myself very much disposed to believe the affirmations of these 

 collectors, because they know very well, through communicating 

 with difl'erent persons, the scientific value of the discovery of fossil 

 man, and, as they make their collections only with the intention 

 of selling them, they believe with reason that there will be a large 

 augmentation in the price if they can present among the objects 

 they offer to the curious some rarity of the first order. Thus Seguin^ 

 who carried collections of fossil bones to Paris, had no other 

 intention than to sell them; he was in the past a confectioner, 

 and he followed the example of Bravard in making these collections 

 when he comprehended the possibility of earning a fortune with 

 the same. . . . The fame of the discoveries of fossil bones 

 made by Boucher de Perthes in France has acquainted Seguin with 

 the great value that they might acquire. He tried to augment, 

 for this reason, the effect of his new collection, bringing his fossil 

 bones to Paris and including with them the first examples of fossil 

 man of the pampa." 



In 1879, in the third volume of his Physical Description of the 

 Argentine, Burmeister returns once more to the subject in the 

 following words : 



"The fossil bones described by Gervais [Jour, de Zoologie, ii, 

 232] have been found in a deposit of gravel on the banks of the 

 Rio Carcarana, north of Rosario, at a place where excavations 

 were made for a bridge of the Central Railroad. I have received 

 from the same locality, tlu'ough the kindness of the engineer charged 

 with the construction of the bridge, a very numerous collection of 

 bones from the same gravel, but without any human remains. 

 The collection comprises a large quantity of bones of deer, all of 

 a very fresh aspect and well conserved; and, as these animals belong 

 to the superior level of the diluvial formation, ... I can 

 not concede to the human bones that came from the same layer any 

 greater antiquity. It is true that there are also bones of more 

 ancient species, but these are rare in comparison with the numerous 

 fragments from more modern ammals and their origin is problem- 

 atic. I have received from excavations made in the same layer 

 a fragment of a skull of Tyyotherium from a very young individual 

 and as this species is evidently from the diluvial deposit and very 

 rare in this gravel, I am disposed to believe that it had been trans- 



