Oct. 1833. 



GREAT DROUGHT. 



155 



The number of bones embedded in the grand estuary- 

 deposit of the Pampas must he very great ; I myself heard 

 of, and saw many groups. The names of such places as " the 

 stream of the animal/' the hill of the giant/^ tell the same 

 story. At otlier times I heard of the marvellous property of 

 certain rivers, which had the power of changing small bones 

 into large; or as some maintained, the bones themselves 

 grew. As far as I am aware, not one of these animals, as 

 was formerly supposed, perished in the marshes, or muddy 

 river-beds of the present land, but their bones have been 

 exposed by the streams intersecting the deposit in which 

 their remains were formerly buried. We may therefore 

 conclude that the whole area of the Pampas is one wide 

 sepulchre for these extinct quadrupeds. 



While travelling through the country, I received several 

 vivid descriptions of the eifect of a great drought ; and the ac- 

 count of this may throw some light on the cases, where vast 

 numbers of animals of all kinds, have been embedded toge- 

 ther. The period included between the years 1827 and 

 1830 is called the "gran seco^^ or the great drought. During 

 this time, so little rain fell, that the vegetation, even to the 

 thistles, failed ; the brooks were dried up, and the whole 

 country assumed the appearance of a dusty high-road. 

 This was especially the case in the northern part of the 

 province of Buenos Ayres, and the southern part of St. Fe. 

 Very great numbers of birds, wild animals, cattle, and horses, 

 perished from the want of food and water. A man told me, 

 that the deer* used to come into his courtyard to the well, 



affirm that this is an error : according to M. Gervais, the DidelpMs cran- 

 crivora inhabits the Antilles. A tooth of the Mastodon has been brought 

 from Bahama (Ed. New Phil. Journal, July, 1826, p. 395). We cannot, 

 however, from this conclude, that the Mastodon formerly inhabited those 

 islands, for the carcass might have been floated there. Some mammalia 

 certainly are peculiar to the Archipelago. 



* In Capt. Owen's Surveying Voyage (vol. ii.,p. 274) there is a curious ac- 

 count of the effects of a drought on the elephants, at Benguela (west coast 

 of Africa). A number of these animals had sometime since entered the 



