129 - 134.

[5] I am bound to express in the strongest terms, my obligation to the government of Buenos Ayres for the obliging manner in which passports to all parts of the country were given me, as naturalist of the Beagle.

[6] This prophecy has turned out entirely and miserably wrong. 1845.

[7] Voyage dans l'Amerique Merid. par M. A. d'Orbigny. Part. Hist. tom. i. p. 664.

CHAPTER V

BAHIA BLANCA

Bahia Blanca - Geology - Numerous gigantic Quadrupeds - Recent Extinction - Longevity of species - Large Animals do not require a luxuriant vegetation - Southern Africa - Siberian Fossils - Two Species of Ostrich - Habits of Oven-bird - Armadilloes - Venomous Snake, Toad, Lizard - Hybernation of Animal - Habits of Sea-Pen - Indian Wars and Massacres - Arrow-head, antiquarian Relic.

The Beagle arrived here on the 24th of August, and a week afterwards sailed for the Plata. With Captain Fitz Roy's consent I was left behind, to travel by land to Buenos Ayres. I will here add some observations, which were made during this visit and on a previous occasion, when the Beagle was employed in surveying the harbour.

The plain, at the distance of a few miles from the coast, belongs to the great Pampean formation, which consists in part of a reddish clay, and in part of a highly calcareous marly rock. Nearer the coast there are some plains formed from the wreck of the upper plain, and from mud, gravel, and sand thrown up by the sea during the slow elevation of the land, of which elevation we have evidence in upraised beds of recent shells, and in rounded pebbles of pumice scattered over the country.

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