第65章 ON THE FORMATIONS OF THE PAMPAS(14)

assuredly directly opposite effects ought not to be attributed to the same agency.Where, again, could a mass of fine sediment, charged with calcareous matter in a fit state for chemical segregation, and in quantity sufficient to cover an area at least 750 miles long, and 400 miles broad, to a depth of from twenty to thirty feet to a hundred feet, have been accumulated, ready to be transported by the supposed debacle? To my mind it is little short of demonstration, that a great lapse of time was necessary for the production and deposition of the enormous amount of mudlike matter forming the Pampas; nor should I have noticed the theory of a debacle, had it not been adduced by a naturalist so eminent as M.d'Orbigny.

A second theory, first suggested, I believe, by Sir W.Parish, is that the Pampean formation was thrown down on low and marshy plains by the rivers of this country before they assumed their present courses.The appearance and composition of the deposit, the manner in which it slopes up and round the primary ranges, the nature of the underlying marine beds, the estuary and sea-shells on the surface, the overlying sandstone beds at M.Hermoso, are all quite opposed to this view.Nor do I believe that there is a single instance of a skeleton of one of the extinct mammifers having been found in an upright position, as if it had been mired.

The third theory, of the truth of which I cannot entertain the smallest doubt, is that the Pampean formation was slowly accumulated at the mouth of the former estuary of the Plata and in the sea adjoining it.I have come to this conclusion from the reasons assigned against the two foregoing theories, and from simple geographical considerations.From the numerous shells of the Azara labiata lying loose on the surface of the plains, and near Buenos Ayres embedded in the tosca-rock, we know that this formation not only was formerly covered by, but that the uppermost parts were deposited in, the brackish water of the ancient La Plata.Southward and seaward of Buenos Ayres, the plains were upheaved from under water inhabited by true marine shells.We further know from Professor Ehrenberg's examination of the twenty microscopical organisms in the mud round the tooth of the Mastodon high up the course of the Parana, that the bottom-most part of this formation was of brackish-water origin.A similar conclusion must be extended to the beds of like composition, at the level of the sea and under it, at M.Hermoso in Bahia Blanca.Dr.Carpenter finds that the harder varieties of tosca-rock, collected chiefly to the south, contain marine spongoid bodies, minute fragments of shells, corals, and Polythalamia; these perhaps may have been drifted inwards by the tides, from the more open parts of the sea.The absence of shells, throughout this deposit, with the exception of the uppermost layers near Buenos Ayres, is a remarkable fact: can it be explained by the brackish condition of the water, or by the deep mud at the bottom? I have stated that both the reddish mud and the concretions of tosca-rock are often penetrated by minute, linear cavities, such as frequently may be observed in fresh-water calcareous deposits:--were they produced by the burrowing of small worms?

Only on this view of the Pampean formation having been of estuary origin, can the extraordinary numbers (presently to be alluded to) of the embedded mammiferous remains be explained.(It is almost superfluous to give the numerous cases (for instance, in Sumatra; Lyell "Principles" volume 3 page 325 sixth edition, of the carcasses of animals having been washed out to sea by swollen rivers; but I may refer to a recent account by Mr.