BLAKE — PAST LIFE IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



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ever, were far too small to have produced the mastodon bones of 

 Tarija. When this argument was pressed on the monks, they replied, 

 " that tlie bones had swelled since they were buried in the earth." 

 Castcliiau naively remarks, that a like proof might demonstrate that 

 the mastodon bones of Tarija might have belonged to dwarfs. This 

 singular superstition is by no means confined to the monks. Don 

 Francisco Antonio Casello gravely tells his readers, that " the soil of 

 the town of Tarija possesses the virtue of making bones grow beyond 

 measure. If a body of ordinary size is buried, and is disinterred 

 after the lapse of some time, we find the bones excessively swollen." 

 The English reader who scoffs at this ridiculous theory of the Tari- 

 jans may, however, recollect that, in the year 1862, there are still a 

 few writers in England who speak of " an unknown mysterious force" 

 which has kept the species of animals distinct from each other 

 throughout all time. We are not yet so far removed from the tram- 

 mels of an adherence to unproven and undemonstrable assumptions 

 in science to entitle us to ridicule the hypotheses which our less- 

 gifted friends in Bolivia may suggest to the world. 



The genus Antilope at present is chiefly confined to the Old 

 World. Forty-seven species are found in the Old World, and one, 

 or perhaps a second, in North America. In Brazil, during the 

 Pliocene period, a species {Antilope maqidnensis) has been discovered 

 by Lund, besides two individuals of the extinct genus Leptotlierium, 

 allied to Cervus. The latitude of Brazil was as well qualified to sup- 

 port antelopes as that of Africa or India, although, since the Plio- 

 cene period, their place has been taken by the numerous species of 

 small stags, the Guazutis and Brocket deer of Brazil, Colombia, and 

 Mexico. 



The European dog, like the horse, was introduced into America 

 by tlie followers of Columbus. Prior, however, to this time, there 

 existed in Mexico a small lapdog, termed Alco by the Peruvians, and 

 a mute silky-haired breed employed by the natives of Santo Domingo 

 in the chace. These last were termed Goschis, or Gasque, which 

 word seems, according to Hamilton Smith, to be corrupted from 

 Guarachaj', and indicates that these animals Mere imported by the 

 Caribs from Tierra Eirme. Besides these, various species of true 

 wolves, prairie wolves, aguara wolves, aguara dogs, and aguara foxes, 

 being fourteen species in all, are described by Colonel Smith. In 

 Santo Domingo, and on the Pampas of South America, feral dogs are 

 found, the oft'apring of the European races. The origin of the dogs 

 of Nootka Sound, of the Mackenzie Iliver, and of the Esquimaux, is 

 yet undeinonstrated. In Brazil, during the Pliocene period, three 

 species of dog existed. 



Mr. AVaterhouse has pointed out that the existing mice of the 

 New A\^orld all belong to a different genus (Hesperomi/s) to those of 

 the Old. Many species of fossil mice of the same natural group 

 as the other American mice are found in Brazil, where their bones 

 whiten the floor of tlie caves and fissures where they have been 

 dropped by the owls, wlio then, as now, preyed upon the diminutive 



