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Show 154 81'. FE. Oct. 1833. terrestrial globe.* 'rhis elephant must have existed in Mexico; and Cuvier,t judging from a fragment of a tusk, thinks it even extended to the neighbourhood of Quito in South America. In the latter country three species of Mastodon have been discovered. One of these, M. angustidens, is common to Europe. It is singular that its remains, as yet, have never been brought from North America ; nevertheless, considering that it was a contemporary of the extinct animals above mentioned, it seems highly probable that it arrived by the same line of communication on the N.W. coast. As its remains have frequently been found at a great elevation in the Cordillera, perhaps its habits led it to follow that chain of mountains from north to south. After these facts, it is only in conformity with what we might almost have expected, that the horse, belonging to the same order of Pachydermata, should formerly have inhabited both North and South America. It is interesting thus to discover an epoch anterior to the division, as far at least as two important orders among the mammalia are concerned, of the continent into two separate zoological provinces. The geologist who believes in considerable oscillations of level in the crust of the globe within recent periods, will not fear to speculate either on the elevation of the Mexican platform, as a cause of the distinction, or on the submergence of land in the West Indian seas,-a circumstance which is perhaps indicated by the zoology of those islands.t • I may observe that at the present day both species of elephants have wide ranges. The African one is found from the Senegal to the Cape of Good Hope, a distance of about 3000 miles. The Asiatic kind formerly had an equal range, namely, from the banks of the Indus to the East Indian Isles. The hippopotamus is believed to have reached from the Cape to Egypt. t Ossemens Fossiles, vol. i., p. 158. Cuvier says he cannot decide positively, not having seen a molar tooth. :j: Dr. Richardson (Report for 1836, to Brit. Assoc., p. 157) says, "the spotted cavy (ca:logenys), and perhaps a species of cavia, and one dasyprocta, extend from South America to the West Indies and Mexico." Cuvier says the Kinkajou is found in the larger Antilles, but others Oct. 1833. GREAT DROUGHT. 155 The number of bones embedded in the grand estuary deposit of the Pampas must he very great; I myself heard of, and saw many groups. The names of such places as "the stream of the animal,'' "the hill of the giant," tell the same story. At other times I heard of the marvellous property of certain rivers, which had the power of changing small bones into large; or as some maintained, the bones themselves grew. As far as I am aware, not one of these animals, as was formerly supposed, perished in the marshes, or muddy river-beds of the present land, but their bones have· been exposed by the streams intersecting the deposit in which their remains were formerly buried. We may therefore conclude that the whole area of the Pampas is one wide sepulchre for these extinct quadrupeds. While travelling through the country, I received several vivid descriptions of the effect of a great drought; and the account of this may throw some light on the cases, where vast numbers of animals of all kinds, have been embedded together. The period included between the years 1827 and 1830 is called the" gran seco" or the great drought. During this time, so little rain fell, that the vegetation, even to the thistles, failed ; the brooks were dried up, and the whole country assumed the appearance of a dusty high-road. This was especially the case in the northern part of the province of Buenos Ayres, and the southern part of St. Fe. Very great numbers of birds, wild animals, cattle, and horses, perished from the want of food and water. A man told me, that the deer* used to come into his courtyard to the well, affirm that this is an error: according to M. Gervais, the Didelphis crancriv01 ·a inhabits the Antilles. A tooth of the Mastodon has been brought from Bahama (Ed. New Phil. Journal, July, 1826, p. 395). We cannot, however, from this conclude, that the Mastodon formerly inhabited those islands, for the carcass might have been floated there. Some mammalia certainly are peculiar to the Archipelago. *In Capt. Owen's Surveying Voyage (vol. ii., p. 274) there is a curious account of the effects of a drought on the elephants, at Benguela (west coast of Africa). " A number of these animals had sometime since entered the |