FOSSIL MAMMALS. 



BY JEPPEIES WTMAN, M. D. 



Description of a portion of the lower jaiv of Mastodon Anditjm of Ouvier, also of a tooth and 

 fragment of the femur of a Mastodon, brought from Chile hy Lieut. J. M. G-illiss, U. S. IST. 



From tlie various recorded discoveries of the remains of Mastodons in Soutli America, it 

 appears that they once had a geographical range over nearly the whole of that continent, since 

 they were found by Humholdt as far north as Santa Fe de- Bogota, especially at the Gamp des 

 Geans, where they were collected in great numbers ; and have also been discovered as far south 

 as Buenos Ayres, on the Atlantic, by Admiral Dupotet, at Concepcion de Chile* on the Pacific, 

 and at various intermediate points in Peru, Chile, La Plata, Brazil, and Columbia, by Dom- 

 bey,t Gay,J Alcide d'Orbigny, Darwin,|| and others. Thus their remains extend from 5° 

 north to about 37° south, and on both sides of the great chain of the Cordilleras, from ocean to 

 ocean. What is still more remarkable, the bones of Mastodons have been discovered at unu- 

 sually great elevations, according to d'Orbigny, even up to the borders of perpetual snow.§ 

 One of the molars, described by Cuvier, was obtained by Humboldt on the volcano of Ibam- 

 bura, at an elevation of seven thousand and two hundred feet above the level of the sea. 



The specimens submitted to me for examination by Lieut. Gilliss, and which are here 

 described, were exhumed in an attempt to drain the lake of Tagua-Tagua, in the province of 

 Colchagua, about one hundred and five miles south of Santiago, about sixty from the Pacific 

 and at an elevation of about fourteen hundred feet above the level of the sea. The lake in 

 latitude 34° 18' south, lies in a basin at the foot of the central range of the cordilleras and is 

 completely closed in except at its outlet, which is through a narrow channel towards the south- 

 east and through a narrow gorge to the west, which last, however, was above the level of the 

 lake. In this gorge a drain was cut, and, as the waters flowed off, was gradually extended 

 into the lake until it reached nearly two hundred yards from the margin, where, at a depth o# 

 twenty feet below the bed, the bones of a large animal were discovered, and eight or ten yards 

 from these some others. They attracted but little attention at the time, and, in consequence 

 many of them were either destroyed or dispersed. The larger portion of those now known to 

 exist are in the museum at Santiago. Those.here described were presented to Lieut. Gilliss by 

 Mr. Bichard Price, an English gentleman, long resident in Chile. They consist of a broken 

 lower jaw, a molar tooth, and the fragment of a thigh-bone. 



Plate XII, Figs. 1 and 2. 

 I. Fragment of a loioerjaiv. — This comprises the horizontal portion of the right side, extend- 

 ing from the symphysis, which is entire, to the base of the coronoid process, which is broken off 

 the fractured surface sloping obliquely backwards to the commencement of the " angle ;" this 



* Cuvier states that Humboldt gave him a tooth which he had brought from Concepcion de Chile. (Oss. Pose, 4me edition 

 T. II, p. 370.) Lieut. Gilliss has called my attention to the fact, that Humboldt did not personally visit that locality. A proba- 

 ble explanation of the statement is, perhaps, to be found in the circumstance that the tooth may have been presented to Hum- 

 boldt by some one who brought it from Concepcion de Chile; and still more probably, as Lieut. Gilliss suggests, it may have 

 been obtained from a town of the same name near the equator, which Humboldt actually did visit. 



t Cuvier, Oss. Foss., Tome HI. 



i Gay, Hist. Nat. de Chile. 



II Geological Observations in South America, by Charles Darwin, P. S. S. &c. ; Loudon, 1851, p. 103. 



i^ Darwin, Op. Cit,, p. 1U5. 



