Although Dr. Hauthal's explorations were rather hurried and Dr. Nordenskjöld's results have only been published hitherto in abstract,[63] their account of the deposits on the floor of the cavern seem to confirm the suspicion that the remains of these two faunas were introduced at two successive periods. According to Hauthal, the remains of the Guanaco were found along with fragmentary bones of Deer, shells of Mytilus chorus, branches of trees, and dried leaves, in the superficial dust of the cavern near the outer wall. The skin of Grypotherium and all the other remains of this and the associated Pampean genera were discovered in the deeper layer of excrement and cut hay between the mound and the inner wall of the cavern. According to Nordenskjöld, three distinct strata can be recognised on the floor of the cavern as follows:
A. A thin surface layer, containing ashes, shells, and bones of recent animals broken by man.
B. A middle layer, containing numerous branches of trees and dried leaves, with remains of Lama and the extinct horse, Onohippidium. Said to be probably the stratum in which the original piece of skin was found.
C. A bottom layer, usually about a metre in thickness, without any traces of branches or leaves, but only dried herbs. Remains of Grypotherium numerous and confined to this stratum, associated with its excrement and hair, also with remains of a large variety of Felis onca, Macrauchenia, and Onohippidium.
It is unfortunate that the question of the contemporaneity of the various bones cannot be tested by the ingenious method of chemical analysis which has been applied with success to similar problems by M. Adolphe Carnot in France. The French chemist has shown that when bones are buried in ordinary sediments they undergo changes which gradually cause the percentage of contained fluorine to increase. According to him, the longer a bone has been buried, the greater is the percentage of fluorine found in it on analysis. In one case[64] he examined the scapula of a deer and a human tibia, discovered together in fluviatile sand near Billancourt (Seine); he found that the former had seven or eight times its usual percentage of fluorine, while the human bone did not differ in any respect from the normal in this constituent. He therefore concluded that the latter bone was not of the same age as the former, but had been introduced comparatively recently by burial. In this and the other recorded cases, however, it is to be observed that the sediment was of a uniform character and admitted of free percolation of water. In the Patagonian cavern, on the contrary, the bones occur partly in dust, partly in dried herbage, partly in dried excrement, and partly in the burnt residue of the same. Moreover, they must always have been subjected to intense dryness, and the usual process of chemical alteration cannot have taken place.
Considering all circumstances, I think that, even without chemical evidence, zoologists and geologists cannot fail now to agree with Dr. Moreno and his colleagues of the La Plata Museum, that the remarkably preserved Grypotherium from the Patagonian cavern belongs to the extinct Pampean fauna of South America, and need not be searched for in the unexplored wilds of that continent. If we accept the confirmatory evidence afforded by Mr. Spencer Moore, we can also hardly refuse to believe that this great Ground-Sloth was actually kept and fed by an early race of man.
IV. Note concerning Tehuelche Legends.
By Hesketh Prichard.
I now proceed to give the testimony of Dr. F. Ameghino, whose brother Carlos was well acquainted with the country and who early gave it as his opinion that the animal, which is named the Neomylodon listai, was still living in Patagonia. In support of his opinion he adduced tales which Carlos Ameghino had gathered from the Indians, who roam the pampas, of a vast mysterious beast said by them to haunt the distant lagoons and forests of the unexplored regions near the Andes. These stories had, moreover, been confirmed in Dr. Ameghino's opinion by the experience of the late well-known geographer and traveller, Señor Ramon Lista, who verbally told both Dr. Ameghino and his brother that he had seen and fired at a mysterious creature, which, however, disappeared in the brushwood and could not afterwards be traced. He described it as being covered with reddish-grey hair, and he believed it to be a pangolin or scaly-anteater.[65] Taking all things into consideration, Dr. Ameghino announced his conviction that the mysterious animal referred to was the last representative of a group, long believed extinct, related to the Mylodon.
According to Dr. Ameghino the Indians had bestowed upon the mysterious animal the name of Iemisch. Nothing would induce them to penetrate into the supposed haunts of this monster. It was described as amphibious, equally at home on land or in the water; in remote mountain recesses it lurked in caves, or had its lairs by the shores of lonely lagoons and rivers, or at times lay in wait among the lower passes of the Cordillera. In habits it was nocturnal, and its strength so great that it could seize a horse in its claws, and hold itself down to the bottoms of the lakes! The head was supposed to be short and without external ears, but showing enormous dog-teeth: the feet short and bear-like, armed with formidable claws united by a swimming membrane; the long tail, tapering and prehensile, the hair hard and of a uniform yellowish-brown. In size it far exceeded any creature they knew of, its legs, though short, being almost as great in girth as its body. It followed, naturally that narratives of personal experiences and encounters with this terrific animal were varied.