I have already given my reasons for believing that the animals embedded at M. Hermoso and at P. Alta in Bahia Blanca, lived on adjoining land, formed of parts of the already elevated Pampean deposit. With respect to the food of these many great extinct quadrupeds, I will not repeat the facts given in my "Journal" (second edition page 85), showing that there is no correlation between the luxuriance of the vegetation of a country and the size of its mammiferous inhabitants. I do not doubt that large animals could now exist, as far as the amount, not kind, of vegetation is concerned, on the sterile plains of Bahia Blanca and of the R. Negro, as well as on the equally, if not more sterile plains of Southern Africa. The climate, however, may perhaps have somewhat deteriorated since the mammifers embedded at Bahia Blanca lived there; for we must not infer, from the continued existence of the same shells on the present coasts, that there has been no change in climate; for several of these shells now range northward along the shores of Brazil, where the most luxuriant vegetation flourishes under a tropical temperature. With respect to the extinction, which at first fills the mind with astonishment, of the many great and small mammifers of this period, I may also refer to the work above cited (second edition page 173), in which I have endeavoured to show, that however unable we may be to explain the precise cause, we ought not properly to feel more surprised at a species becoming extinct than at one being rare; and yet we are accustomed to view the rarity of any particular species as an ordinary event, not requiring any extraordinary agency.

The several mammifers embedded in the Pampean formation, which mostly belong to extinct genera, and some even to extinct families or orders, and which differ nearly, if not quite, as much as do the Eocene mammifers of Europe from living quadrupeds having existed contemporaneously with mollusca, all still inhabiting the adjoining sea, is certainly a most striking fact. It is, however, far from being an isolated one; for, during the late tertiary deposits of Britain, an elephant, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus co-existed with many recent land and fresh-water shells; and in North America, we have the best evidence that a mastodon, elephant, megatherium, megalonyx, mylodon, an extinct horse and ox, likewise co- existed with numerous land, fresh-water, and marine recent shells. (Many original observations, and a summary on this subject, are given in Mr. Lyell's paper in the "Geological Proceedings" volume 4 page 3 and in his "Travels in North America" volume 1 page 164 and volume 2 page 60. For the European analogous cases see Mr. Lyell's "Principles of Geology" 6th edition volume 1 page 37.) The enumeration of these extinct North American animals naturally leads me to refer to the former closer relation of the mammiferous inhabitants of the two Americas, which I have discussed in my "Journal," and likewise to the vast extent of country over which some of them ranged: thus the same species of the Megatherium, Megalonyx, Equus (as far as the state of their remains permits of identification), extended from the Southern United States of North America to Bahia Blanca, in latitude 39 degrees S., on the coast of Patagonia. The fact of these animals having inhabited tropical and temperate regions, does not appear to me any great difficulty, seeing that at the Cape of Good Hope several quadrupeds, such as the elephant and hippopotamus, range from the equator to latitude 35 degrees south. The case of the Mastodon Andium is one of more difficulty, for it is found from latitude 36 degrees S., over, as I have reason to believe, nearly the whole of Brazil, and up the Cordillera to regions which, according to M. d'Orbigny, border on perpetual snow, and which are almost destitute of vegetation: undoubtedly the climate of the Cordillera must have been different when the mastodon inhabited it; but we should not forget the case of the Siberian mammoth and rhinoceros, as showing how severe a climate the larger pachydermata can endure; nor overlook the fact of the guanaco ranging at the present day over the hot low deserts of Peru, the lofty pinnacles of the Cordillera, and the damp forest-clad land of Southern Tierra del Fuego; the puma, also, is found from the equator to the Strait of Magellan, and I have seen its footsteps only a little below the limits of perpetual snow in the Cordillera of Chile.

Charles Darwin

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