TOPOGRAPHY. 



335 



had it carefully removed from the earth ; and after it had been 

 freed frorn the soil, and washed, it seemed to have lost apart 

 of its dusky hue, and had the shape and appearance of the 

 ulna, the larger bone of the fore-arm of a man. Its length, 

 however, was two yards and five inches, which circumstance 

 excited the admiration of all present, and of myself more es- 

 pecially, whose intention it was to send it to the archbishop 

 of Chuquisaca, as an obje6l of singular curiosity. I was un- 

 able to do this ; since, in my endeavour to bind it up for car- 

 riage, it fell from my hands, and brake in four pieces. In 

 my rage, I threw the fragments from the side of the hill into 

 the valley beneath." — Father Francisco Gonzales Laguna, ex- 

 provincial of the order of Cler'igos Agonmantes, correspondent 

 of the royal botanical garden, and superintendent of the ob- 

 je6ls of natural history sent from Peru, had in his possession, 

 and has consequently remitted to the royal cabinet of natural 

 history of Madrid, a petrified tooth, very perfe6l in its confi- 

 guration, which weighed five pounds three ounces, and was 

 found on the heights of Escayache, in the department of Ta- 

 rija. We have at this time before us a tooth, one of the in- 

 cisors, "of the size of a clenched hand, in the same manner 

 petrified and perfe6t, which was found in a moor in the vici- 

 nity of the mission of las Salinas. 



However superficially these petrifications may be considered, 

 it must appear evident that they cannot belong to human bones. 

 To the end that they should be deemed of that description, it 

 would be necessary to suppose the possibility of the fabulous 

 generation of the Titans, who scaled the heavens to dethrone 

 Jupiter. We are but little aided by conje6lureS, in the belief 

 that they are the fragments of the skeleton of some enormous 



quadruped. 



