Branner — Fossil Remains of Mammals in Brazil, 135 



and teeth were taken from this reservoir. The best preserved 

 and most striking specimens had already been carried away by 

 neighbors and visitors, and some of them were said to have 

 * been sent to Bahia by the owner of the property, but to whom 

 or to what institution they went I was unable to learn. Many 

 vertebrae and large fragments of bone had been used along 

 with stones to build a wall around the basin, while smaller 

 pieces had been left exposed in heaps. From these heaps I 

 gathered fragments enough to load three horses, and this much 

 was sent to the collections of the Commissao Geologica at Rio 

 de Janeiro. Upon the suspension of the work of the Com- 

 mission shortly afterwards this material was turned over to the 

 Museu Nacional in Rio de Janeiro, where it is probably still 

 preserved. Among the specimens brought away were two 

 pieces of tusks, several vertebrae and several broken teeth of 

 the mastodon, the jaw and teeth of some other kind of large 

 mammal, and pieces of bones and teeth of still other animals. 

 Many but not all of these bones were more or less worn as if 

 they had been trampled under foot by large animals. That 

 this wearing was done before they were excavated is shown by 

 the fact that in some instances the worn and broken bones 

 were found cemented in sand and gravel, and remain as hard 

 solid masses even after years of exposure to the weather. 



Among the materials taken from the excavation was a rude 

 unpolished stone pestle made of the line-grained granite of the 

 neighborhood, about 18 centimeters long, and nine or ten 

 centimeters in diameter. It is impossible to say whether this 

 pestle or hammer was mingled with the bones or came from 

 the soil above them. The man who did the digging had no 

 recollection of its location further than that it was taken out 

 with the bones and other materials from the excavation. 



I could only spend a couple of days in examining this 

 locality. It was hoped that some digging might be done in 

 search of additional material, but the difficulty of arranging 

 laborers and the delay caused by lack of anything like proper 

 tools made exploration impossible at that time. The original 

 reservoir was made by scraping the earth with a hoe upon a 

 dry hide and this was then drawn away by half-wild bullocks. 



The occurrence of the fossil bones of large mammals at 

 Lagoa da Lagea in the State of Pernambuco is a typical one 

 for northeastern Brazil. Many cases have been reported of the 

 finding of these fossils under similar circumstances in the 

 States of Alagoas, Pernambuco, Parahyba, Rio Grande do 

 Norte and Ceara, and it seems probable that they may be 

 found throughout the entire area of Brazil that is subject to 

 drouths. About three leagues from the Lagoa da Lagea on 



