226 Revieivs — Extinct Ground-sloth in Patagonia. 



cases, where " the Boulder-clays appear occasionally to have been 

 dragged, and in such cases the stones are more intensely striated 

 and the shells scratched, the underlying rock being sometimes torn 

 up and mixed with the bottom of the clay where the latter is thin," 

 we should discern more direct evidence of land-ice than the author 

 is willing to admit. He contents himself with the suggestion that 

 after the deposition of the beds "they have evidently been subjected, 

 in many localities, to considerable deformation, chiefly by the 

 movement of land-ice." It is hardly necessary to point out that 

 the occurrence of Foraminifera is no test of the marine origin of the 

 deposits as they now occur, any more than would be the occurrence 

 of Gryphcea arcuata or Belemnites abhreviatus. It is admitted that 

 the great bulk of the marine shells occur as fragments, and that 

 a few are scratched and polished ; and they are recorded by the 

 author as occurring in the Ayrshire drift-beds from a depth of 

 35 feet below, to an altitude of 1,061 feet above, sea-level. He does 

 not specify the forms found at the different levels and localities, but, 

 judging from his short general list, four species occur frequently, 

 and a dozen or more occasionally in the Drifts. There are no 

 indications from the mollusca of the varying depths of water during 

 the time of the supposed marine submergence. Leaving the 

 speculative portions of the author's memoir, we cannot doubt that 

 the numerous facts recorded by him will be of service to local 

 workers on the subject of glacial phenomena. 



la IE ^V I lES "W S. 



A Supposed Existing Ground-sloth in Patagonia. 



(1) " Premiere Notice sur le Neomylodon Listai, un Representant 

 vivant des anciens Edentes Gravigrades fossiles de I'Argentina." 

 Par Florentino Ameghino. La Plata, 1898. [Translated in 

 Natural Science, vol. xiii, pp. 324-326 (Nov. 1898).] 



(2) "On a Piece of Skin named Neomylodon Listai, from a Cavern 

 near Consuelo Cove, Last Hope Inlet, Patagonia." By Dr. F. P. 

 Moreno, C.M.Z.S. With a Description of the Specimen, by 

 A. Smith Woodward, F.Z.S. Zool. Soc, Feb. 21st, 1899. 



(3) " On some Remains of Neomylodon Listai, Ameghino, brought 

 home by the Swedish Expedition to Tierra del Fuego, 1895-97." 

 By Dr. Einar Lonnberg. Extract from Svenska Exped. till 

 Magellansldnderna, vol. ii, No. 7 (Stockholm, 1899). 



LAST September Dr. Florentino Ameghino, the well-known 

 palaeontologist of La Plata, startled the scientific world by 

 announcing the discovery of a still-existing ground-sloth, allied 

 to Mylodon, in Patagonia. He had received some ossicles from 

 a piece of apparently fresh skin found in Southern Patagonia, and 

 he at once recognized them as essentially identical M'ith the well- 

 known dermal ossicles of Mylodon and Glossotherium. He mentioned 

 that the skin itself had been found on the surface of the ground, 

 without any trace of the skeleton ; that the specimen was extremely 

 tough, about 2 centimetres in thickness ; and that it was completely 



