OCT 1 1000 



THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 



NEW SERIES. DECADE IV. VOL. VI. 



No. IX.— SEPTEMBER, 1899. 



OS;IC3-Ilsr-A.Xj -A-iaTIGXilBS. 



I. — Note on the Discovery op Miolania and of Glossothebium 

 (Neomtlodon) in Patagonia. 



By Francesco P. Moreno, F.R.G.S., Corr.M.Z.S.Lond., 

 Director of the La Plata Museum. 



SINCE 1877, when I discovered the Tertiary Mammalian beds of 

 Santa Cruz, in Patagonia, I have been looking for proofs of the 

 ancient connection between the new uplifted lands of the southern 

 part of the American continent and the other lands of the Southern 

 Hemisphere — Africa and Australia. During my subsequent travels 

 in the interior of the Argentine Eepublic, including Patagonia, my 

 interest in that connection has been increasing, and I have discovered 

 additional evidence, which showed me the former greater extension 

 to the east, in comparatively modern times, of the actual existing 

 lands. The splendid results of the researches made by the La Plata 

 Museum in Patagonia have revealed a great number of lower 

 forms of vertebrates, including numerous marsupialia, some of which 

 seem to me closely related to the mammals of the Pleistocene fauna 

 of Australia, and among them Pyroiherium with Diprotoclon. I think 

 that my suggestion has an indubitable confirmation in the discovery 

 made by the expeditions which I sent in 1897 and in the first 

 months of this year, under the direction of Mr. Santiago Koth, 

 expeditions that have had astonishing results. 



In beds containing remains of mammals and dinosaurians, Mr. Eoth 

 discovered in 1897 a caudal sheath-ring, very similar to those of the 

 Glyptodon, but which I at once recognized as pertaining to a form 

 like the chelonian of the Pleistocene of Queensland, described by 

 Owen. I brought this fossil with me to London for comparison 

 with the remains of Miolania preserved in the British Museum 

 (Natural Historj'). The resemblance was great, but the fact of 

 a Tertiary chelonian from Patagonia being analogous to the 

 Pleistocene genus from Queensland and Lord Howe Island was so 

 astonishing, that some doubt was permitted ; but, having previously 

 ordered a new examination of the fossiliferous bed where the remains 

 were found, I have now the certainty of the extremely close relation 

 between the Australian and Patagonian chelonian. I have received 



DECADE IV. — VOL. VI. — ^NO. IS. 25 



