198 
The Bolivian Monster : 
[April, 
metal. Then our conceptions of what is “ possible would 
have to be re-adjusted. , , o „ 
Or suppose some chemist not known to fame should suc- 
ceed in decomposing one of the so-called elements, and of 
transmuting one into another. Here, also, there is no 
a priori impossibility. He would merely have succeeded in 
doing what many have attempted and are attempting, and 
what probably all chemists desire to see done But his 
report would be received with hesitation until Hus experi- 
ment had succeeded in other hands, or at least had been re- 
peated by himself in the presence of competent judges. 
Here, again, our views as to the extent of the possible 
would have to be enlarged. It might perhaps be well 1 we 
had another term to be used in place of ‘ impossible in a 
matters of contingent truth. In such cases we want a word 
to express what lies outside of, and is moie 01 ess signa y 
opposed to, general experience. It will, we think, be ad- 
mitted that the more widely any alleged fatt departs i fiom 
such general experience, the more complete venfication it 
W1 We q may now turn to the account before us of the 
Bolivian monster. A brief notice of it was forwarded us by 
a Manchester correspondent,— a gentleman whose well-know 
intelligence and standing excluded all suspicion of a canard 
or of an intended hoax. His letter was published in our 
issue for Tune, 1883 (p. 368), and earned us in ceitain 
quarters a few sneers. We now learn farther particulars 
f rnm the “ Tournal de Luna ” and from Cosmos. # . 
The animal in question was killed in the Rivet Ben., in 
Bolivia— one of the tributaries ol the Madeia, and hence 
indirealy of the Amazons. A photograph was taken of 
body, an engraving from which appears 111 C “”S p 
skeleton is said to have been conveyed to the city of La Faz, 
where it is now deposited. The length of the animal, ho 
the head to the extremity of the tail, is given as 12 meties, 
or approximately, 40 feet. No other dimensions are given, 
but the body-judging from the figure before us-is exceed- 
ingly masswe. J The general aspeft of the creature is that 
If an aquatic Saurian. There is the usual armour-clad 
trunk There are four powerful legs, terminating in ioimi- 
dable claws, but so short that the belly will scarcely clear 
the ground. The tail is of the usual Saurian chaiadter, 
very much thicker than is met with in any mammal, but 
differing from that of the crocodiles by the absence of lidges, 
and by being compressed not laterally, but vertically towards 
the tip. But when we turn to the head oui ideas of the 
