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Show 156 S'l'. FE. Oct. 1833. which he had been obliged to dig to supply his own family with water; and that the partridges had hardly strength to fly away when pursued. The lowest estimation of the loss of ~a:tle in the province of Buenos Ayres alone, was taken at one m1lhon head. A proprietor at San Pedro had previou..sly to these years 20,000 cattle; at the end not one remained. San Pedro is situated in the middle of the finest country ; and even now again abounds with animals ; yet, during the latter part of the "gran seco," live cattle were brought in vessels for the consumption of the inhabitants. The animals roamed from their estancias, and wandering far to the southward, were mingled together in such multitudes, that a government commission was sent from Buenos Ayres to settle the disputes of the owners. Sir Woodbine Parish informed me of another and very curious source of dispute; the ground being so long dry, such quantities of dust were blown about, that in this open country the landmarks became obliterated, and people could not tell the limits of their estates. I was informed by an eyewitness, that the cattle in herds of thousands rushed into the Parana,* and being exhausted by hunger they were unable to crawl up the muddy banks, and thus were drowned. The arm which runs by San Pedro was so full of putrid carcasses, that the master of a vessel told me, that the smell rendered it quite impossible to pass that way. Without doubt several hundred thousand animals thus perished in the river. Their bodies when putrid floated down the stream, and many in all probability were deposited town, in a body, to possess themselves of the wells, not being able to procure any water in the country. The inhabitants mustered, when a desperate conflict ensued, which terminated in the ultimate discomfiture of the invaders, but not until they had killed one man, and wounded several others." The town is said to have a population of nearly three thousand! • Azara talks of the fury of the wild horses rushing into the marshes during a dry season : " et les premiers arrives sont fonles, et ecras(s par ceux, qui les suivent. Il m'est arrive plus d'une fois de trouver plus de mille cadavres de chevaux sauvages morts de cette fa~on."-Vol. i., p. 374. Oct. 1833. GREAT DROUGHT. 157 in the estuary of the Plata. All the small rivers became highly saline, and this caused the death of vast numbers in particular spots ; for when an animal drinks of such water it does not recover. I noticed, but probably it was the effect of a gradual increase, rather than of any one period, that the smaller streams in the Pampas were paved with a breccia of bones.* Subsequently to this unusual drought a very rainy season commenced, which caused great floods. Hence it is almost certain, that some thousands of these skeletons were buried by the deposits of the very next year. What would be the opinion of a geologist, viewing such an enormous collection of bones, of all kinds of animals and of all ages, thus embedded in one thick earthy mass ? Would he not attribute it to a flood having swept over the surface of the land, rather than to the common order of things ? These droughts to a certain degree seem to be periodical ; I was told the dates of several others, and the intervals were about fifteen years. A tendency to periodical droughts is, I believe, common in most dry climates :t such certainly is the case in Australia. Captain Sturt says they return after every ten and twelve years, and are then followed by excessive rains, which gradually become less and less, till another drought is the consequence. The year 1826 and the two following were singularly dry in Australia, and the latter were the first of the "gran seco." I mention this, because • In the neighbourhood of the great towns on the shores of the Plata, the number of bones strewed over the ground is truly astonishing. Since our return I have been informed, that ships have been freighted to this country with a cargo of bones. That cattle should be fattened on turnips manured with the bones of animals that lived in the southern hemisphere, is a curious fact in the commerce of the world In the East Indies the luxurious drink wine cooled with North-American ice, which in its journey has twice crossed the equator! t Perhaps in every country, but the effect is more marked where the mean annual quantity of rain is small. I have seen the trunk of an old tree in England, in which the successive rings showed a tendency to periodical increase and diminution of size; about every tenth ring being small. Sec Mr. Babbage's Ninth Bridgewater Treatise. Note M. |