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Show 98 BAHIA BLANCA. Aug. 1833. t have ·been accumulated on we know that the mass could no t' part of the bed is . lf At the present Ime, . the beach 1tse · . h .1 ther part has been raised daily washed by the tide, w I ehano Hence we may infer, b th l vel of t e sea. . a few feet a ove e e b t 'flin(}' since the penod · h here een r1 o' that the elevatiOn as . living. This con- I' w extmct, were when the mamma la, ~0 1 other considerations (such . . · h ony With severa elusiOn 1s m arm he beds underlying the Pampas as the recent character of t e in this work to deposit), but which I have not spac enter on. f the coast of this part of h al structure o From t e. gener om elle'd to believe,, that the changes South America, we are c r l t ) been in one direction, and of level have all (at least o ade 1 If then we look back that they have b een -very gra ua • d ' l' ed' the land l)rO- . h th e quadrupe s IV ' to the penod w en esl 1 ted only by a few fathoms d t 1 vel ess e eva . bably stoo a a e ' 't eral configuration smce than at present. Therefore, I :e;:; modified ; a conclusion that epoch cannot have beden g f ym the close similarity in . · 1 ld be rawn ro whiCh certam y wou h 11 liVI'ng in the bay (as b t the s e s now every respect, e ween t trial species) with those well as in the case of the one erres which formerly lived there. h e been gathered from The surrounding country, as mayh av ter Trees nowhere . f ry desert c arac · this journal, IS o a ve h h' h re chiefly confined to d l few bus es w IC a occur, an on y a d h~ll k or to the borders of the depressions among the san - ~. oc s, a arent difficulty : we saline marshes. Her~, then, IS an p~as occurred no great have the strongest eVIde~ce thhatfthtuere of the country, yet . t odify t e ea res physical change o m . 1 were supported on in for~er days, numerous la;~: :~::c:nty vegetation. the plams now covered b~ a l . nt vegetation, has been That large animals require a uxuna d f one work to . h' h has passe rom a general assumptwn, w IC t that it is com-another I do not hesitate, however, o say . eolo- . l f l . and that it has vitiated the reasomng of ~ plete y a se ' . f reat interest in the ancient history gists, on some pomts o. ? d' h bably been derived of the world. The preJU Ice as pro Aug. 1833. FOSSIL QUADRUPEDS. from India, and the Indian islands, where troops of elephants, noble forests, and impenetrable jungles, are associated together in every account. If, on the other hand, we refer to any work of travels through the southern parts of Africa, we shall find allusions in almost every page either to the desert character of the country, or to the numbers of large animals inhabiting it. The same thing is rendered evident by the many sketches which have been published of various parts of the interior. When the Beagle was at Cape Town, I rode a few leagues into the country, which at least was sufficient to render that which I had read more fully intelligible. Dr. Andrew Smith, who, at the head of his adventurous party, has so lately succeeded in passing the Tropic of Capricorn, informs me that, taking into consideration the whole of the southern part of Africa, there can be no doubt of its being sterile country. On the southern and south-eastern coasts there arc some fine forests, but with these exceptions, the traYeller may pass, for days together, through open plains, covered by a poor and scanty vegetation. It is difficult to convey any accurate idea of degrees of comparative fertility; but it may be safely said, that the amount of vegetation supported at any one time* by Great Britain, exceeds, perhaps even tenfold, the quantity on an equal area, in the interior parts of Southern Africa. The fact that bullock-waggons can travel in any direction, excepting near the coast, without more than occasionally half an hour's delay, gives, perhaps, a more definite notion of its scanti- . ness. Now if we look to the animals inhabiting these wide plains, we shall find their numbers extraordinarily great, and their bulk immense. We must enumerate the elephant, three species of rhinoceros, and as Dr. Smith is convinced two others also, the hippopotamus, giraffe, the bos caffer-as large as a full-grown bull, an~ the elan-but little less, two ·• I mean by this to exclude the total amount, which may have been successively prodnced and consumed dming a given per·iod. II 2 |