THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. 473 



and the upper, of the gravelly conglomerate and hard clay. 

 Nearly the whole of the lower portion of the cliffs, as 

 well as all the principal deposits of fallen blocks, were ex- 

 amined by us in the course of the walk, and we met with 

 numerous small fragments of bone, but very few specimens 

 of any size or value occurred, and the generality of these were 

 in such a state of decay as to crumble to pieces when we 

 attempted, although with the utmost amount of care that we 

 could bestow, to remove them from the surrounding mass. 

 To add to this, the matrix in which they were imbedded was 

 so exceedingly soft as not to permit of being split in any 

 given direction. The first fossil of any size observed by us 

 was a long bone, partially protruding from a mass, and dis- 

 solved into fragments in the course of my attempts to remove 

 it. At some distance from this a portion of what appeared to 

 be the scapula of a small quadruped, with some vertebrae, 

 occurred, and farther on one of the party (Mr. Yereker) 

 directed my attention to a black piece of bone projecting 

 from one side of a large block near its centre. This, which 

 was carefully removed at the expense of a large amount of 

 labour, with a considerable amount of the matrix surrounding 

 it, by three of the ofi&cers, to whose zeal in rendering me most 

 valuable assistance in my work I shall ever feel deeply 

 indebted, afterwards proved to be a most valuable specimen, 

 for on carefully removing more of the matrix when we 

 returned to the ship, I found that it was the cranium of a 

 quadruped of considerable size, with the dentition of both 

 upper and lower jaws nearly complete.* As no other speci- 

 mens of importance were discovered, we re-embarked towards 



* This specimen, a description of which may be expected ere long from 

 Professor Huxley, is, I am informed by that gentleman, the type of a new- 

 genus allied to Anoplotherium. 



