346 Pampean Formation. part u. 



Patachonica — a gigantic and most extraordinary 

 pachyderm, allied, according to Professor Owen, to 

 the Palasotherium, but with affinities to the Ruminants, 

 especially to the American division of the Camelidse. 

 Several of the vertebras in a chain, and nearly all the 

 bones of one of the limbs, even to the smallest bones of 

 the foot, were embedded in their proper relative posi- 

 tions : hence the skeleton was certainly united by its 

 flesh or ligaments, when enveloped in the mud. This 

 earthy mass, with its concretions and mammiferous 

 remains, filling up furrows in the underlying gravel, 

 certainly presents a very striking resemblance to some 

 of the sections (for instance, at P. Alta in B. Blanca, 

 or at the Barrancas de S. Gregorio) in the Pampean 

 formation ; but I must believe that this resemblance is 

 only accidental. I suspect that the mud which at the 

 present day is accumulating in deep and narrow gullies 

 at the head of the harbour, would, after elevation, pre- 

 sent a very similar appearance. The southernmost 

 part of the true Pampean formation, namely, on the 

 Colorado, lies 560 miles of latitude north of this 

 point, 1 



With respect to the age of the Macrauchenia, the 

 shells on the surface prove that the mass in which the 

 skeleton was enveloped has been elevated above the 

 sea within the recent period : I did not see any of the 

 shells embedded at a sufficient depth to assure me 

 (though it be highly probable) that the whole thick- 

 ness of the mass was contemporaneous with these indi- 

 vidual specimens. That the Macrauchenia lived sub- 

 sequently to the spreading out of the gravel on this 



1 In the succeeding chapter I shall have to refer to a great 

 deposit of extinct rnarnmiferous remains, lately discovered by Capt. 

 Sulivan, R.X., at a point still farther south, namely at the R. 

 Gallegos ; their age must at present remain doubt fuL 



