210 



PATAdONIA. 



Jan. 1834. 



improbable that another large animal has likewise a similar 

 affinity. 



The teeth of the rodent nearly equalling in size those of 

 the Capybara, which were discovered near Bahia Blanca^, 

 must also be remembered. 



The law of the succession of types^ although subject to 

 some remarkable exceptions, must possess the highest 

 interest to every philosophical naturalist, and was first clearly 

 observed in regard to Australia, where fossil remains of a 

 large and extinct species of Kangaroo and other marsupial 

 animals were discovered buried in a cave. In America the 

 most marked change among the mammalia has been the 

 loss of several species of Mastodon, of an elephant, and of 

 the horse. These Pachydermata appear formerly to have 

 had a range over the world, like that which deer and ante- 

 lopes now hold. If BufFon had known of these gigantic 

 armadilloes, llamas, great rodents, and lost pachydermata, 

 he would have said with a greater semblance of truth, that 

 the creative force in America had lost its vigour, rather than 

 that it had never possessed such powers. 



It is impossible to reflect without the deepest astonish- 

 ment, on the changed state of this continent. Formerly it 

 must have swarmed with great monsters, like the southern 

 parts of Africa, but now we find only the tapir, guanaco, arma- 

 dillo, and capybara ; mere pigmies compared to the antecedent 

 races. The greater number, if not all, of these extinct 

 quadrupeds lived at a very recent period ; and many of them 

 were contemporaries of the existing molluscs. Since their 

 loss, no very great physical changes can have taken place in 

 the nature of the country. What then has exterminated so 

 many living creatures? In the Pampas, the great sepul- 

 chre of such remains, there are no signs of violence, but on 

 the contrary, of the most quiet and scarcely sensible changes. 

 At Bahia Blanca I endeavoured to show the probability that 

 the ancient Edentata, like the present species, lived in a dry 

 and sterile country, such as now is found in that neighbour- 

 hood. With respect to the camel-like llama of Patagonia, 



