ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
be readily attached to the saddles, which took much time 
and trouble to undo. Then the ridicule of my men each 
time the “ ugly stones ” were referred to also kept me 
at first from unduly attracting their attention to them. 
With the many things I had to occupy my time day and 
night I ended by forgetting to take the photographs — 
greatly owing to being almost certain that I should bring 
the skulls themselves safely back to Europe. Rut the 
unexpected always happens. We shall see later on how, 
after having carried those fossils safely for several months, 
they were, unknown to me, wilfully flung, together with 
a quantity of provisions, into a deep part of the Arinos 
River by my companions, and they were beyond recovery. 
Greatly to my regret, we left that interesting spot the 
next morning. A drenching rain prevented my paying 
a second visit to the two hillocks where the fossil fragments 
were to be found, but I took the exact position of them, 
so that any further expedition could locate the spot with 
great ease. 
It was interesting to note that a Brazilian expedition 
had discovered some fossil bones of a gigantic animal some 
200 kilometres southwest of that place, and other remains 
of a giant animal had been found by another Brazilian 
expedition on the banks of the Paranatinga River, some 
400 or 500 kilometres northeast of our position. 
We were encamped on the bank of the Rio Pedra 
Grande, the stream of that name which we had passed 
that day being merely a tributary. During the night we 
had observed a double-ringed, lunar halo. The moon was 
almost full. From the horizon directly under the moon 
were innumerable radiations, not converging toward the 
moon but, curiously enough, the first two at a tangent to 
the larger halo, the others at equal intervals on each side. 
At sunrise, before the rain-storm began, we were 
treated to wonderful cloud and light effects. The lower 
portion of the sky, of brilliant yellow and vivid green, 
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