neral similar to that which fills the fissures of the Jura,* where the fact was long ago noticed by M. Brongniart. It is extremely probable that this superficial deposit of reddish earth, which exists also at Rio Janeiro, unites in a continuous manner with the great deposit of the Pampas, from which it differs only in the mixture of quartz pebbles derived from the subjacent soil. M. Lund, on his part, ascribes the red loam of Brazil to a great irruption of water which, covering all that part of the globe, exterminated the beings which inhabited it. Whatever modification this hypothesis may afterwards receive, it seems to us evident, that, at all events, the extension of the Pampean bed over the mountains of Brazil, if it were completely proved, would overturn the contrary hypothesis which consists in regarding the Pampean loam merely as a deposit, formed tranquilly at the mouth of a great river. Now, this extension of the Pampean formation to the mountains of Brazil, appears to us so much the more probable, because those mountains are not the only ones in South America on which traces are met with of the existence of an analogous deposit. The same bed, indeed, presents itself at a much greater height on the flanks of the Bolivian Andes, where it fills small basins at Tariji and at Cochabamba, at a height of about 8400 feet above the ocean, and where it covers the whole great Bolivian Plateau, at a mean absolute height of about 13,000 feet.

The Pampean deposit, occurring in this manner at all heights of the basins, formed of rocks of all epochs, is naturally found in contact with beds of the most different descriptions. On the great Bolivian Plateau, it reposes on the Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, and Triassic systems, and likewise on Trachytes; at Cochabamba, on the two first; at Moxos, on the Guaranian tertiary formation; and, lastly, in the Pampas, on the Patagonian tertiary beds. But, notwithstanding this diversity of the fundamental rocks, wherever it is observed, and whatever may be its height, it invariably forms a horizontal bed, and its composition is fundamentally nearly uniform: in the Pampas it is a reddish loamy bed of great thickness; at Chiquitos and Moxos it is nearly identical, and on the banks of the Rio

* Lund, Coup d'œil sur les espèces éteintes de mammifères fossiles du Brésil, (Annales des Sciences Naturelles, t. xi. p. 214 and 230; 1839.)

Piray it is merely mixed with clay; on the elevated plateaus of the Andes it still exhibits a composition analogous to what it presents in the Pampas; and on the mountains of Brazil, the only difference is, that it contains pebbles.

The fossils which it contains in these various positions are of a not less uniform nature. They are solely bones of terrestrial mammifera. These bones occur in prodigious quantity, and amply compensate in interest the absence of marine remains. By observing with attention the elevated falaises of the banks of the Parana formed by the Tosca, which is the loam in its most normal and most developed form, various portions of skeletons of large animals are seen projecting from the escarpment, exhibited, as it were, in an immense natural museum. These bones, mistaken at first for bones of giants, have struck the inhabitants of the country for a long period; and the names of many of the localities of the Pampas, and of the banks of the Parana, have been derived from them, such as the stream of the animal, the hill of the giant, &c. At a later period, Science noticed the subject. Falkner says that he found in the Pampas the shell of an animal composed of hexagonal bones, of which each had a diameter of at least an inch.* The carapace was nearly 3 yards long, and resembled in every respect that of the armadillos, but of immense proportions. As these notices leave no doubt on the subject, here we have, well-ascertained, in 1770, the presence in the Pampas, not only of fossil bones, but also of that cara

* Falkner's observations on his discovery are curious, and worthy of quotation. He says: 66 I myself found the shell of an animal, composed of little hexagonal bones, each bone an inch in diameter at least; and the shell was near three yards over. It seemed, in all respects, except its size, to be the upper part of the shell of the armadillo; which, in these times, is not above a span in breadth. Some of my companions found also, near the river Parana, an entire skeleton of a monstrous alligator. I myself saw part of the vertebræ, each bone of which was near four inches thick, and about six inches broad. Upon an anatomical survey of the bones, I was pretty well assured, that this extraordinary increase did not proceed from any acquisition of foreign matter; as I found that the bony fibres were bigger in proportion as the bones were larger. The bases of the teeth were entire, though the roots were worn away, and exactly resembled in figure the basis of a human tooth, and not of that of any other animal I ever saw. These things are well known to all who live in these countries; otherwise, I should not have Jared to write them."-Description of Patagonia and the adjoining parts of South enerica. By Thomas Falkner; Hereford, 1774, p. 55.--EDIT.

pace of a large cuirassed quadruped, whose relations with the skeleton to which it belongs have recently given rise to discussions among zoologists. Since 1770, the Pampas have become celebrated by the discovery of the famous skeleton of the Megatherium found at Lujan, which was sent to the King of Spain by the Viceroy of Buenos-Ayres, and was described by Cuvier and M. Garrega. In 1827, M. d'Orbigny collected the fossil bones of several species in the Pampas, at SanNicolas to the north of Buenos-Ayres, on the Parana and near Bajada, in the province of Entre-Rios. Some years afterwards, Mr Darwin discovered in the Pampas a great number of remains of mammifera, which Mr Owen has described with the greatest care in the "Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle.” Since that time, MM. Tadeo Vilardebo, Bernardo Berro, and Arsène Isabele, found, in 1838, on the banks of the Podemal, one of the tributaries of the Rio Santa-Lucia, in the Banda Orientale (Republic of Uraguay), the skeleton of an enormous animal, still provided with its carapace, and to which they have given the name of Dasypus giganteus. Lastly, in 1841, M. Pedro de Angelis discovered in the Pampean bed, at a distance of about seventeen miles north of Buenos-Ayres, the skeleton of the Mylodon robustus, which is now deposited in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London, and which Mr Owen has described in a special work, that has excited, in the highest degree, the attention both of zoologists and of geologists.* There was also found at the same locality an osseous carapace analogous to that of the armadillos, but of gigantic dimensions.

If we follow the Pampean deposit beyond the Pampas, we find that the valley of Torija, situated in the south of the republic of Bolivia, in the last eastern lateral chains of the eastern Cordillera, has for a long time been quoted as a locality of fossil bones. This valley forms a small basin furrowed in the east by a water-course, and it is on the banks of the latter that an immense number of bones occur in a gravelly loam, in which the animals seem to be nearly entire. M. d'Orbigny has ascertained the occurrence in this deposit of the Mastodon Andium of Cuvier, and he thinks that he can refer to the same

* Owen's Description of the Skeleton of the Mylodon robustus, 1842.

bed the remains which Humboldt noticed in other parts of the Andes. It is known that that illustrious traveller collected in 1802, on the plateau of Quito, teeth of elephants and mastodons, which were examined by Cuvier. Probably the teeth brought home by Dombey the traveller, came from the same localities. Humboldt likewise discovered the teeth of Mastodon angustidens near Santa-Fe de Bogota, in Columbia, and bones of elephants at Cumanacoa, near Cumana. Bones of the elephant have not hitherto been found in the Pampean formation, but Mr Darwin discovered in this deposit, near Santa-Fe Bajada, bones of mastodons associated, and this is a curious circumstance, with bones of the horse. Previously, M. Auguste de Saint-Hilaire had sent to the Museum of Paris a tooth of a mastodon, collected at Villa do Fanado, in Brazil. MM. Clausen and Lund have subsequently examined the caverns of the province of Minaes Geraës, and have collected a considerable quantity of bones of quadrupeds. The number of species already distinguished by them amounts to more than 100. They seem to have belonged to the same fauna as those whose remains occur in the Pampean deposit, for the identical species of the genera Megalonyx, Megatherium, Holophorus, and Mastodon, present themselves simultaneously in the Pampas, and in the caverns of Brazil into which the Pampian mud has penetrated, and whose entrances it surrounds. This circumstance is so much the more remarkable, because it is a distance of more than 1200 miles from the province of Minaes Geraës, where these caverns are, to the falaises of the Parana, near San Pedro, which are the richest in fossils, and because this same loam occupies an extent of surface on the Pampas, chiefly to the south-west of the Parana, which of itself is nearly as great as the half of France. This fact harmonises with many others, tending to shew, that the continent of South America is fashioned on the great scale; and that, in order to explain its origin, we can only call in the aid of simple and great causes.*

To be concluded in our next Number.

*Comptes Rendus de l'Academie des Sciences. The Report was given in to the Academy on the 28th August 1843. The Committee consisted of Messrs Alexandre Brongniart, Dufrenoy, and Elie de Beaumont; the last-mentioned being the reporter.

Fables and prejudices regarding Serpents. By Dr H. SCHLEGEL.*

The serpent performed a grand part in antiquity, and still plays it among most barbarous or demi-civilized nations. Numerous causes have been assigned for this phenomenon. Man, intimidated by his aversion for these animals, which is in him in some degree innate, has only learnt from experience, how small a number of these reptiles are formidable by their poisonous qualities, while others conceal, under the same delusive appearances, a mild and inoffensive character.

A thousand different properties, which are successively detected in serpents, have opened to man a vast field of meditation, and, in furnishing ample materials to dress out his religious ideas, have presented him with an infinite number of mythic allegories. He has drawn from them symbols, and has ended in offering to those dreaded animals a worship founded on the most diverse and conflicting motives. It would seem to be natural to man to avail himself even of the animals which are noxious, for procuring the means of preservation from the evils which they cause: hence the practice, established from the most remote times, of extracting from serpents remedies against their bites; while, on the other hand, man sought to appease their fury by revering them as divinities. The ancients, employing often the most prominent characteristics of animals in their allegories, discovered, in the habits of serpents, in their qualities, or even in their form, an inexhaustible fund for setting to work their own fertile imagination, which heated itself invariably in embellishing the observations they had made from nature. It is to these various causes, and to circumstances perhaps little known at this time, that we should attribute the fear, mingled with hatred and veneration, with which the serpent has inspired the human race.

In the mythology of most ancient nations, there are traces

From Dr Traill's excellent translation of Dr Schlegel's valuable "Essay on the Physiognomy of Serpents," about to be published. This work we recommend to the student of Ophiology.