NOTICE OF THE MEGATHERIUM. 
§ 1. HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 
On the water-worn banks of the river Luxan, near the city of Buenos Ayres, a skeleton 
of colossal proportions and strange anatomy was discovered in 1789. Having been carefully 
disinterred and transmitted to Madrid by the Governor, the Marquis of Loreto, it was there 
mounted by John Baptist Bru, and since that time has been the peculiar glory of the 
Royal Museum. Six years after, remains of the same animal were found in Peru and in 
Paraguay, and were also sent to Spain. In 1823 a part of the femur was found by a Prussian 
traveller, in Queguay in Uraguay, and sent to Berlin. In 1824 parts of the lower jaw, teeth, 
vertebrae, ribs, and leg-bones were obtained from the marshes of Skiddaway island on the 
coast of Georgia ; and soon after other fragments were collected on the shores of Ashley river 
in South Carolina. These specimens, with others since discovered in that region, are deposited 
in the Museums of the Lyceum of Natural History of New York, of the Academy of Natural 
Sciences of Philadelphia, and of the National Institute in Washington. In 1831, after a 
season of unusual drought, the river Salado, which flows through the flat alluvial plains south 
of Buenos Ayres, presented to the eye of a native a large shapeless mass standing out of the 
water. He supposed it to be the trunk of a tree. It was dragged out by means of lassoes, and 
taken to Don Hilario Sosa, the owner of the estate, who gave it to Sir Woodbine Parish. It 
proved to be the pelvis of the fossil first found at Luxan, and with many other bones, including 
parts not preserved in the Madrid specimen, was presented to the Royal College of Surgeons. 
To the same Museum were also sent some interesting remains discovered in 1834 by the eminent 
naturalist, Charles Darwin, at Bahia Blanca, in Northern Patagonia. In 1837 a skeleton, 
nearly entire, was discovered in the river Luxan, and deposited in the Museum at Montevideo; 
and various bones obtained the next year on the estate of Don Manuel Rosas, north of the 
Salado, are likewise preserved in that city. About the same time all the parts which were 
wanting in the collection of the Royal College of Surgeons were discovered near Luxan, and 
purchased by the trustees of the British Museum. It was from the originals in these two 
institutions that plaster-casts were taken ; and a complete skeleton, thus formed, was mounted 
in the British Museum, under the superintendence of Professor Owen. Other copies were 
liberally allowed by the Trustees and Council, one of which has recently been added to the 
Geological Museum of the University of Rochester. 
Several years elapsed after the Madrid skeleton was mounted before its exact place in 
the animal kingdom was scientifically determined. Its gigantic size — in certain dimensions 
