immediately recognised as having been a part of the head of an arrow.
He told me it was found near the island of Cholechel, and that they are
frequently picked up there. It was between two and three inches long,
and therefore twice as large as those now used in Tierra del Fuego: it
was made of opaque cream-coloured flint, but the point and barbs had
been intentionally broken off. It is well known that no Pampas Indians
now use bows and arrows. I believe a small tribe in Banda Oriental
must be excepted; but they are widely separated from the Pampas
Indians, and border close on those tribes that inhabit the forest, and
live on foot. It appears, therefore, that these arrow-heads are
antiquarian [22] relics of the Indians, before the great change in
habits consequent on the introduction of the horse into South America.
[1] Since this was written, M. Alcide d'Orbingy has examined these
shells, and pronounces them all to be recent.
[2] M. Aug. Bravard has described, in a Spanish work ('Observaciones
Geologicas,' 1857), this district, and he believes that the bones of
the extinct mammals were washed out of the underlying Pampean deposit,
and subsequently became embedded with the still existing shells; but I
am not convinced by his remarks. M. Bravard believes that the whole
enormous Pampean deposit is a sub-aerial formation, like sand-dunes:
this seems to me to be an untenable doctrine.
[3] Principles of Geology, vol. iv. p. 40.
[4] This theory was first developed in the Zoology of the Voyage of the
Beagle, and subsequently in Professor Owen's Memoir on Mylodon robustus.
[5] I mean this to exclude the total amount which may have been
successively produced and consumed during a given period.
[6] Travels in the Interior of South Africa, vol. ii. p. 207
[7] The elephant which was killed at Exeter Change was estimated (being
partly weighed) at five tons and a half. The elephant actress, as I was
informed, weighed one ton less; so that we may take five as the average
of a full-grown elephant. I was told at the Surry Gardens, that a
hippopotamus which was sent to England cut up into pieces was estimated
at three tons and a half; we will call it three. From these premises
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