Dr. F. P. Moreno — Miolania, etc., in Patagonia. 387 



Novembei', 1898, I was convinced that it was part of the skin 

 of a Mylodon or a form very similar to it, and that the discovery- 

 was of great importance to me, as I think that the Pampean muds, 

 where the extinct Edentata are found, are of very modern age, 

 an opinion contrary to that held by another observer, Mr. Ameghino, 

 who refers the Pampean fauna to the Tertiary age. I have 

 already maintained that the extinction of the greater part of the 

 Pampean fauna took place after the presence of man in a relatively 

 advanced culture, called Neolithic culture. Having, then, great 

 interest in the continuation of the investigations in the cave, 

 I ordered, before coming to London, more extensive researches, and 

 these have been made with very successful results. 



Dr. Otto Nordenskjold had previously obtained in 1896 a piece of 

 the same skin, which, it is known, was discovered by a party of 

 Argentine surveyors during the preliminary studies for the boundary 

 between Argentina and Chili in the Andean Cordillera, and, 

 recognizing also the importance of it. Dr. Erland Nordenskjold went 

 last year to the same spot to look for some more remains. The 

 excavations which he made gave him, so far as I know, some bones, 

 pieces of jaws, teeth, and claws of the same animal, but he did not 

 obtain more remains of the skin.^ My assistant, Mr. Hauthal, 

 arrived later at the cave, when Dr. Erland Nordenskjold had terminated 

 his researches, and commenced further exploration. He obtained, 

 not only skulls, jaws, teeth, bones, and claws, but also a nearly 

 complete skin of the animal, which shows that it is a Glossotherium, 

 together with bones of Macrauchenia, Equus, and AucJiettia, also 

 a great quantity of dung, hay cut by man, ashes, and some bones 

 worked by man. I am not yet sure if the bones of man discovered 

 by Mr. Hauthal were found in the same cave or in one of those in 

 its neighbourhood ; but the presence in the Glossotherium deposit of 

 bones worked by man is a proof that man and other mammals, 

 whose remains have been discovered in the cave, were contemporary. 

 I suggest that the skin has been preserved by man for bedding. 

 In the caves inhabited by ancient man in Patagonia I have seen 

 cut hay, and probably this also was used for beds. 



I expect to receive in a few days all these specimens at the same 

 time as those of the Iliolania, together with reports on the 

 discoveries, and I think they will arrive in time for me to exhibit 

 these remains at the meeting of the British Association at Dover. 



The discovery made by Mr. Roth of some advanced Mammalia in 

 the beds that contain dinosaurians, and Mr. Hauthal's discovery of 

 remains of extinct vertebrates and other mammals in the caves of 

 Southern Patagonia, associated with Macrauchenia, horse, AucJienia, 

 and man, are proofs of the very recent changes in the physical 

 geography of Patagonia, and afford most interesting problems, which 

 can only be solved by a S3^stematic examination of the Argentine 

 country by experienced geologists. In the course of my paper read 

 before the Royal Geographical Society, I proposed that this Society, 



^ E. Nordenskjold, " Neue Untersiichungen iiber Neomylodon listai " : Zool. 

 Anzeiger, vol. xxii (1899), pp. 335, 336. 



