1890.] Geography and Travel. 1065 
forming large erosive valleys with river systems connecting the interior 
directly with the briny waves of the oceans. By aid of this new 
system of draining the territory a considerable number of lakes lost 
their former supply of water. Gradually they began to evaporate, 
lowering constantly their shore-marks, tillthey were reduced to swamps, 
and from this passed into the present fertile valleys which we find so 
frequently in Honduras. 
During my exploration in Honduras I never observed glacial marks, 
The absence of these self-registered graphical records of moving ice 
masses, would imply either that the glacial period did not exist as such in 
Honduras, or that the marks or engravings of that period may have been 
destroyed by the action of water and vegetation. The latter case seems 
very probable, but the absence of real glacial moraines in this country 
is a strong indication of the non-existence of the glacial period. 
The luxuriant forests which, without doubt, have surrounded those 
ancient lakes were inhabited and visited by gigantic mastodons and 
alligators, numerous remains of which we frequently find in a state of 
good preservation from ten to fifty feet below the alluvial grounds of 
former swamps or lakes. As mastodon localities I mention the valleys 
of Danli, Portrerius, Santa Gracias, Santa Rosa, Santa Barbara, and 
Olancho. Inasmuch as we find nearly whole skeletons of mastodons 
in certain places, we may conclude that these animals existed in close 
neighborhood to their present burial-places, and were not carried from 
afar by streams or rivers. The mastodon remains are in size and form 
nearly corresponding to the New York mastodon, with the exception 
that the tusks of the Hondurian mastodon are less curved, and are 
therefore nearly straight. With the lakes disappeared also the gigantic 
mastodon, but of their associates, the tapir and the wild boar have 
been left behind in present Honduras. 
A new scene—a psychozoic one—is going to unroll itself before 
our eyes. The swamps have partly passed into fertile grounds, covered 
with valuable woods, inhabited by animals, which provide an abundant 
supply of food for man, and richly impregnated with mineral sub- 
stances, which were ejected from the interior of the earth through 
large fissures in which they deposited, forming mineral accumulations 
of considerable value. 
Such was the country given by nature to daring man! He soon 
appears before us, not as an uncivilized giant or savage, but as a man 
accustomed to comfort and experienced in art and music. In Hon- 
duras no woeful remains of giants are found, and most likely never will 
be discovered ; but we find, nevertheless, abundantly, g , 
