188 
M. D’Orbigny,* whose grand work in nine quarto volumes is 
no doubt the best on all subjects connected with the geology 
of South America, is of opinion that the destruction of the 
great races of animals which inhabited the country before 
the present era was owing to a flood ; which swept the soil and 
the animals from the surface, and deposited them together in 
an unstratified mass, covering not less than 23,750 square 
leagues. This formation of the Pampas deposit of the same 
red argillaceous earth with bones, which appeal’s to cover 
almost all South America, and is found even at the elevation 
of 400 metres above the level of the sea, coincided with the 
last elevation of the Cordilleras ; the extrusion of the trachyte 
rocks, “ sur une longueur de trente-six degres,” “ mouvement 
Tun des plus grands qui ait lieu a la surface du globe and with 
a great line of dislocation, due, without doubt, to considerable 
sinkings towards the west in the bosom of the great ocean. 
All this reminds one of the Scriptural expression, “ In that 
day were broken up all the fountains of the deep t an( l is 
something startling, vast, gigantic ; and since the same author 
finds traces of the same event in Auvergne, it would suggest 
some world-wide catastrophe. 
I do not know how far it is conceded by geologists that the 
general disappearance of the mammoth was coincident with 
“ the Palaeolithic Flood,” but “ that there was such a flood, 
covering no inconsiderable area in Belgium, in France, in 
England, in the valley of the Tiber, in the valley of the Mis- 
sissippi, and elsewhere, there is no doubt. It is what Dr. 
Andrews calls ‘ the flood of the Loessfl ” 
“ With regard to the fact of this flood there is no question — 
the only question is as to the extent of it. There are some 
indications that it was even more serious than has been sup- 
posed.” x 
I refer to several able and recently published works for 
further information, especially the one just quoted, remarking 
only that the era at which this supposed flood occurred cannot 
reasonably be put back more than a few thousand years. 
Was it in this deluge that the creatures perished whose 
remains are found in “ los Gigantes,” near Santa Fe, at an 
elevation of 7,800 feet ; and again, by Humboldt, at the 
elevation of 7,200 feet, near Imbaburra, in Quito ; and again 
in Central Asia, at 16,000 feet elevation ? See Buckland, 
Rcl. DU., p. 222. 
* D’Orbigny, tome iii. pp. 80, 254, 273, &c. + See Hebrew, 
t Page 128. The Epoch of the Mammoth, by J. C. Southall, A.M., LL.P. 
1878 ; also Appendix 1>. 
