第60章 ON THE FORMATIONS OF THE PAMPAS(9)

These species are all extinct: the six first were found by M.d'Orbigny and myself in the formations of the Rio Negro, S.Josef, and other parts of Patagonia; and therefore, as first observed by M.d'Orbigny, these beds certainly belong to the great Patagonian formation, which will be described in the ensuing chapter, and which we shall see must be considered as a very ancient tertiary one.North of the Bajada, M.d'Orbigny found, in beds which he considers as lying beneath the strata here described, remains of a Toxodon, which he has named as a distinct species from the T.Platensis of the Pampean formation.Much silicified wood is found on the banks of the Parana (and likewise on the Uruguay), and I was informed that they come out of these lower beds; four specimens collected by myself are dicotyledonous.

The upper half of the cliff, to a thickness of about thirty feet, consists of Pampean mud, of which the lower part is pale-coloured, and the upper part of a brighter red, with some irregular layers of an arenaceous variety of tosca, and a few small concretions of the ordinary kind.Close above the marine limestone, there is a thin stratum with a concretionary outline of white hard tosca-rock or marl, which may be considered either as the uppermost bed of the inferior deposits, or the lowest of the Pampean formation; at one time I considered this bed as marking a passage between the two formations: but I have since become convinced that I was deceived on this point.In the section on the Parana, I did not find any mammiferous remains; but at two miles distance on the A.Tapas (a tributary of the Conchitas), they were extremely numerous in a low cliff of red Pampean mud with small concretions, precisely like the upper bed on the Parana.Most of the bones were solitary and much decayed; but I saw the dermal armour of a gigantic Edental quadruped, forming a caldron-like hollow, four or five feet in diameter, out of which, as I was informed, the almost entire skeleton had been lately removed.I found single teeth of the Mastodon Andium, Toxodon Platensis, and Equus curvidens, near to each other.As this latter tooth approaches closely to that of the common horse, I paid particular attention to its true embedment, for I did not at that time know that there was a similar tooth hidden in the matrix with the other mammiferous remains from Punta Alta.It is an interesting circumstance, that Professor Owen finds that the teeth of this horse approach more closely in their peculiar curvature to a fossil specimen brought by Mr.

Lyell from North America, than to those of any other species of Equus.

(Lyell "Travels in North America" volume 1 page 164 and "Proceedings of Geological Society" volume 4 page 39.)The underlying marine tertiary strata extend over a wide area: I was assured that they can be traced in ravines in an east and west line across Entre Rios to the Uruguay, a distance of about 135 miles.In a S.E.

direction I heard of their existence at the head of the R.Nankay; and at P.Gorda in Banda Oriental, a distance of 170 miles, I found the same limestone, containing the same fossil shells, lying at about the same level above the river as at St.Fe.In a southerly direction, these beds sink in height, for at another P.Gorda in Entre Rios, the limestone is seen at a much less height; and there can be little doubt that the yellowish sandy clay, on a level with the river, between the Carcarana and S.Nicholas, belongs to this same formation; as perhaps do the beds of sand at Buenos Ayres, which lie at the bottom of the Pampean formation, about sixty feet beneath the surface of the Plata.The southerly declination of these beds may perhaps be due, not to unequal elevation, but to the original form of the bottom of the sea, sloping from land situated to the north; for that land existed at no great distance, we have evidence in the vegetable remains in the lowest bed at St.Fe; and in the silicified wood and in the bones of Toxodon Paranensis, found (according to M.d'Orbigny) in still lower strata.

BANDA ORIENTAL.

This province lies on the northern side of the Plata, and eastward of the Uruguay: it has a gentle undulatory surface, with a basis of primary rocks;and is in most parts covered up with an unstratified mass, of no great thickness, of reddish Pampean mud.In the eastern half, near Maldonado, this deposit is more arenaceous than in the Pampas, it contains many though small concretions of marl or tosca-rock, and others of highly ferruginous sandstone; in one section, only a few yards in depth, it rested on stratified sand.Near Monte Video this deposit in some spots appears to be of greater thickness; and the remains of the Glyptodon and other extinct mammifers have been found in it.In the long line of cliffs, between fifty and sixty feet in height, called the Barrancas de S.Gregorio, which extend westward of the Rio S.Lucia, the lower half is formed of coarse sand of quartz and feldspar without mica, like that now cast up on the beach near Maldonado; and the upper half of Pampean mud, varying in colour and containing honeycombed veins of soft calcareous matter and small concretions of tosca-rock arranged in lines, and likewise a few pebbles of quartz.This deposit fills up hollows and furrows in the underlying sand;appearing as if water charged with mud had invaded a sandy beach.These cliffs extend far westward, and at a distance of sixty miles, near Colonia del Sacramiento, I found the Pampean deposit resting in some places on this sand, and in others on the primary rocks: between the sand and the reddish mud, there appeared to be interposed, but the section was not a very good one, a thin bed of shells of an existing Mytilus, still partially retaining their colour.The Pampean formation in Banda Oriental might readily be mistaken for an alluvial deposit: compared with that of the Pampas, it is often more sandy, and contains small fragments of quartz; the concretions are much smaller, and there are no extensive masses of tosca-rock.