Geological Observations on South America Part 8

To return to the sh.o.r.es of this bay. At Monte Hermoso there is a good section, about one hundred feet in height, of four distinct strata, appearing to the eye horizontal, but thickening a little towards the N.W.

The uppermost bed, about twenty feet in thickness, consists of obliquely laminated, soft sandstone, including many pebbles of quartz, and falling at the surface into loose sand. The second bed, only six inches thick, is a hard, dark-coloured sandstone. The third bed is pale-coloured Pampean mud; and the fourth is of the same nature, but darker coloured, including in its lower part horizontal layers and lines of concretions of not very compact pinkish tosca-rock. The bottom of the sea, I may remark, to a distance of several miles from the sh.o.r.e, and to a depth of between sixty and one hundred feet, was found by the anchors to be composed of tosca-rock and reddish Pampean mud. Professor Ehrenberg has examined for me specimens of the two lower beds, and finds in them three Polygastrica and six Phytolitharia.

(The following list is given in the "Monatsberichten der konig. Akad. zu Berlin" April 1845:-- POLYGASTRICA.

Fragilaria rhabdosoma.

Gallionella distans.

Pinnularia?

PHYTOLITHARIA.

Lithodontium Bursa.

Lithodontium furcatum.

Lithostylidium exesum.

Lithostylidium rude.

Lithostylidium Serra.

Spongolithis Fustis?)

Of these, only one (Spongolithis Fustis?) is a marine form; five of them are identical with microscopical structures of brackish-water origin, hereafter to be mentioned, which form a central point in the Pampean formation. In these two beds, especially in the lower one, bones of extinct mammifers, some embedded in their proper relative positions and others single, are very numerous in a small extent of the cliffs. These remains consist of, first, the head of Ctenomys antiquus, allied to the living Ctenomys Braziliensis; secondly, a fragment of the remains of a rodent; thirdly, molar teeth and other bones of a large rodent, closely allied to, but distinct from, the existing species of Hydroch.o.e.rus, and therefore probably an inhabitant of fresh water; fourth and fifthly, portions of vertebrae, limbs, ribs, and other bones of two rodents; sixthly, bones of the extremities of some great megatheroid quadruped. (See "Fossil Mammalia"

page 109 by Professor Owen, in the "Zoology of the Voyage of the 'Beagle';"

and Catalogue page 36 of Fossil Remains in Museum of Royal College of Surgeons.) The number of the remains of rodents gives to this collection a peculiar character, compared with those found in any other locality. All these bones are compact and heavy; many of them are stained red, with their surfaces polished; some of the smaller ones are as black as jet.

Monte Hermoso is between fifty and sixty miles distant in a S.E. line from the Ventana, with the intermediate country gently rising towards it, and all consisting of the Pampean formation. What relation, then, do these beds, at the level of the sea and under it, bear to those on the flanks of the Ventana, at the height of 840 feet, and on the flanks of the other neighbouring sierras, which, from the reasons already a.s.signed, do not appear to owe their greater height to unequal elevation? When the tosca- rock was acc.u.mulating round the Ventana, and when, with the exception of a few small rugged primary islands, the whole wide surrounding plains must have been under water, were the strata at Monte Hermoso depositing at the bottom of a great open sea, between eight hundred and one thousand feet in depth? I much doubt this; for if so, the almost perfect carca.s.ses of the several small rodents, the remains of which are so very numerous in so limited a s.p.a.ce, must have been drifted to this spot from the distance of many hundred miles. It appears to me far more probable, that during the Pampean period this whole area had commenced slowly rising (and in the cliffs, at several different heights we have proofs of the land having been exposed to sea-action at several levels), and that tracts of land had thus been formed of Pampean sediment round the Ventana and the other primary ranges, on which the several rodents and other quadrupeds lived, and that a stream (in which perhaps the extinct aquatic Hydroch.o.e.rus lived) drifted their bodies into the adjoining sea, into which the Pampean mud continued to be poured from the north. As the land continued to rise, it appears that this source of sediment was cut off; and in its place sand and pebbles were borne down by stronger currents, and conformably deposited over the Pampean strata.

(FIGURE 15. SECTION OF BEDS WITH RECENT Sh.e.l.lS AND EXTINCT MAMMIFERS, AT PUNTA ALTA IN BAHIA BLANCA. (Showing beds from bottom to top: A, B, C, D.))

Punta Alta is situated about thirty miles higher up on the northern side of this same bay: it consists of a small plain, between twenty and thirty feet in height, cut off on the sh.o.r.e by a line of low cliffs about a mile in length, represented in Figure 15 with its vertical scale necessarily exaggerated. The lower bed (A) is more extensive than the upper ones; it consists of stratified gravel or conglomerate, cemented by calcareo- arenaceous matter, and is divided by curvilinear layers of pinkish marl, of which some are precisely like tosca-rock, and some more sandy. The beds are curvilinear, owing to the action of currents, and dip in different directions; they include an extraordinary number of bones of gigantic mammifers and many sh.e.l.ls. The pebbles are of considerable size, and are of hard sandstone, and of quartz, like that of the Ventana: there are also a few well-rounded ma.s.ses of tosca-rock.

The second bed B is about fifteen feet in thickness, but towards both extremities of the cliff (not included in the diagram) it either thins out and dies away, or pa.s.ses insensibly into an overlying bed of gravel. It consists of red, tough clayey mud, with minute linear cavities; it is marked with faint horizontal shades of colour; it includes a few pebbles, and rarely a minute particle of sh.e.l.l: in one spot, the dermal armour and a few bones of a Dasypoid quadruped were embedded in it: it fills up furrows in the underlying gravel. With the exception of the few pebbles and particles of sh.e.l.ls, this bed resembles the true Pampean mud; but it still more closely resembles the clayey flats (mentioned in the First Chapter) separating the successively rising parallel ranges of sand-dunes.

The bed C is of stratified gravel, like the lowest one; it fills up furrows in the underlying red mud, and is sometimes interstratified with it, and sometimes insensibly pa.s.ses into it; as the red mud thins out, this upper gravel thickens. Sh.e.l.ls are more numerous in it than in the lower gravel; but the bones, though some are still present, are less numerous. In one part, however, where this gravel and the red mud pa.s.sed into each other, I found several bones and a tolerably perfect head of the Megatherium. Some of the large Volutas, though embedded in the gravel-bed C, were filled with the red mud, including great numbers of the little recent Paludestrina australis. These three lower beds are covered by an unconformable mantle D of stratified sandy earth, including many pebbles of quartz, pumice and phonolite, land and sea-sh.e.l.ls.

M. d'Orbigny has been so obliging as to name for me the twenty species of Mollusca embedded in the two gravel beds: they consist of:--

1. Volutella angulata, d'Orbigny, "Voyage" Mollusq. and Pal.

2. Voluta Braziliana, Sol 3. Olicancilleria Braziliensis d'Orbigny.

4. Olicancilleria auricularia, d'Orbigny.

5. Olivina puelchana, d'Orbigny.

6. Buccinanops cochlidium, d'Orbigny.

7. Buccinanops globulosum, d'Orbigny.

8. Colombella sertulariarum, d'Orbigny.

9. Trochus Patagonicus, and var. of ditto, d'Orbigny.

10. Paludestrina Australis, d'Orbigny.

11. Fissurella Patagonica, d'Orbigny.

12. Crepidula muricata, Lam.

13. Venus purpurata, Lam.

14. Venus rostrata, Phillippi.

15. Mytilus Darwinia.n.u.s, d'Orbigny.

16. Nucula semiornata, d'Orbigny.

17. Cardita Patagonica, d'Orbigny.

18. Corbula Patagonica (?), d'Orbigny.

19. Pecten tethuelchus, d'Orbigny.

20. Ostrea puelchana, d'Orbigny.

21. A living species of Bala.n.u.s.

22 and 23. An Astrae and encrusting Fl.u.s.tra, apparently identical with species now living in the bay.

All these sh.e.l.ls now live on this coast, and most of them in this same bay.

I was also struck with the fact, that the proportional numbers of the different kinds appeared to be the same with those now cast up on the beach: in both cases specimens of Voluta, Crepidula, Venus, and Trochus are the most abundant. Four or five of the species are the same with the upraised sh.e.l.ls on the Pampas near Buenos Ayres. All the specimens have a very ancient and bleached appearance, and do not emit, when heated, an animal odour: some of them are changed throughout into a white, soft, fibrous substance; others have the s.p.a.ce between the external walls, either hollow, or filled up with crystalline carbonate of lime. (A Bulinus, mentioned in the Introduction to the "Fossil Mammalia" in the "Zoology of the Voyage of the 'Beagle'" has so much fresher an appearance, than the marine species, that I suspect it must have fallen amongst the others, and been collected by mistake.)

The remains of the extinct mammiferous animals, from the two gravel beds have been described by Professor Owen in the "Zoology of the Voyage of the 'Beagle':" they consist of, 1st, one nearly perfect head and three fragments of heads of the Megatherium Cuvierii; 2nd, a lower jaw of Megalonyx Jeffersonii; 3rd, lower jaw of Mylodon Darwinii; 4th, fragments of a head of some gigantic Edental quadruped; 5th, an almost entire skeleton of the great Scelidotherium leptocephalum, with most of the bones, including the head, vertebrae, ribs, some of the extremities to the claw- bone, and even, as remarked by Professor Owen, the knee-cap, all nearly in their proper relative positions; 6th, fragments of the jaw and a separate tooth of a Toxodon, belonging either to T. Platensis, or to a second species lately discovered near Buenos Ayres; 7th, a tooth of Equus curvidens; 8th, tooth of a Pachyderm, closely allied to Palaeotherium, of which parts of the head have been lately sent from Buenos Ayres to the British Museum; in all probability this pachyderm is identical with the Macrauchenia Patagonica from Port S. Julian, hereafter to be referred to.

Lastly, and 9thly, in a cliff of the red clayey bed B, there was a double piece, about three feet long and two wide, of the bony armour of a large Dasypoid quadruped, with the two sides pressed nearly close together: as the cliff is now rapidly was.h.i.+ng away, this fossil probably was lately much more perfect; from between its doubled-up sides, I extracted the middle and ungual phalanges, united together, of one of the feet, and likewise a separate phalanx: hence one or more of the limbs must have been attached to the dermal case, when it was embedded. Besides these several remains in a distinguishable condition, there were very many single bones: the greater number were embedded in a s.p.a.ce 200 yards square. The preponderance of the Edental quadrupeds is remarkable; as is, in contrast with the beds of Monte Hermoso, the absence of Rodents. Most of the bones are now in a soft and friable condition, and, like the sh.e.l.ls, do not emit when burnt an animal odour. The decayed state of the bones may be partly owing to their late exposure to the air and tidal-waves. Barnacles, Serpulae, and corallines are attached to many of the bones, but I neglected to observe whether these might not have grown on them since being exposed to the present tidal action (After having packed up my specimens at Bahia Blanca, this point occurred to me, and I noted it; but forgot it on my return, until the remains had been cleaned and oiled: my attention has been lately called to the subject by some remarks by M. d'Orbigny.); but I believe that some of the barnacles must have grown on the Scelidotherium, soon after being deposited, and before being WHOLLY covered up by the gravel. Besides the remains in the condition here described, I found one single fragment of bone very much rolled, and as black as jet, so as perfectly to resemble some of the remains from Monte Hermoso.

Very many of the bones had been broken, abraded, and rolled, before being embedded. Others, even some of those included in the coa.r.s.est parts of the the now hard conglomerate, still retain all their minutest prominences perfectly preserved; so that I conclude that they probably were protected by skin, flesh, or ligaments, whilst being covered up. In the case of the Scelidotherium, it is quite certain that the whole skeleton was held together by its ligaments, when deposited in the gravel in which I found it. Some cervical vertebrae and a humerus of corresponding size lay so close together, as did some ribs and the bones of a leg, that I thought that they must originally have belonged to two skeletons, and not have been washed in single; but as remains were here very numerous, I will not lay much stress on these two cases. We have just seen that the armour of the Dasypoid quadruped was certainly embedded together with some of the bones of the feet.

Professor Ehrenberg has examined for me specimens of the finer matter from in contact with these mammiferous remains: he finds in them two Polygastrica, decidedly marine forms; and six Phytolitharia, of which one is probably marine, and the others either of fresh-water or terrestrial origin. ("Monatsberichten der Akad. zu Berlin" April 1845. The list consists of:--

POLYGASTRICA.

Gallionella sulcata.

Stauroptera aspera? fragm.

PHYTOLITHARIA.

Lithasteriscus tuberculatus.

Lithostylidium Clepsammidium.

Lithostylidium quadratum.

Lithostylidium rude.

Lithostylidium unidentatum.

Spongolithis acicularis.)

Only one of these eight microscopical bodies is common to the nine from Monte Hermoso: but five of them are in common with those from the Pampean mud on the banks of the Parana. The presence of any fresh-water infusoria, considering the aridity of the surrounding country, is here remarkable: the most probable explanation appears to be, that these microscopical organisms were washed out of the adjoining great Pampean formation during its denudation, and afterwards redeposited.

We will now see what conclusions may be drawn from the facts above detailed. It is certain that the gravel-beds and intermediate red mud were deposited within the period, when existing species of Mollusca held to each other nearly the same relative proportions as they do on the present coast.

These beds, from the number of littoral species, must have been acc.u.mulated in shallow water; but not, judging from the stratification of the gravel and the layers of marl, on a beach. From the manner in which the red clay fills up furrows in the underlying gravel, and is in some parts itself furrowed by the overlying gravel, whilst in other parts it either insensibly pa.s.ses into, or alternates with, this upper gravel, we may infer several local changes in the currents, perhaps caused by slight changes, up or down, in the level of the land. By the elevation of these beds, to which period the alluvial mantle with pumice-pebbles, land and sea-sh.e.l.ls belongs, the plain of Punta Alta, from twenty to thirty feet in height, was formed. In this neighbourhood there are other and higher sea-formed plains and lines of cliffs in the Pampean formation worn by the denuding action of the waves at different levels. Hence we can easily understand the presence of rounded ma.s.ses of tosca-rock in this lowest plain; and likewise, as the cliffs at Monte Hermoso with their mammiferous remains stand at a higher level, the presence of the one much-rolled fragment of bone which was as black as jet: possibly some few of the other much-rolled bones may have been similarly derived, though I saw only the one fragment, in the same condition with those from Monte Hermoso. M. d'Orbigny has suggested that all these mammiferous remains may have been washed out of the Pampean formation, and afterwards redeposited together with the recent sh.e.l.ls.

("Voyage" Part. Geolog. page 49.) Undoubtedly it is a marvellous fact that these numerous gigantic quadrupeds, belonging, with the exception of the Equus curvidens, to seven extinct genera, and one, namely, the Toxodon, not falling into any existing family, should have co-existed with Mollusca, all of which are still living species; but a.n.a.logous facts have been observed in North America and in Europe. In the first place, it should not be overlooked, that most of the co-embedded sh.e.l.ls have a more ancient and altered appearance than the bones. In the second place, is it probable that numerous bones not hardened by silex or any other mineral, could have retained their delicate prominences and surfaces perfect if they had been washed out of one deposit, and re-embedded in another:--this later deposit being formed of large, hard pebbles, arranged by the action of currents or breakers in shallow water into variously curved and inclined layers? The bones which are now in so perfect a state of preservation, must, I conceive, have been fresh and sound when embedded, and probably were protected by skin, flesh, or ligaments. The skeleton of the Scelidotherium indisputably was deposited entire: shall we say that when held together by its matrix it was washed out of an old gravel-bed (totally unlike in character to the Pampean formation), and re-embedded in another gravel-bed, composed (I speak after careful comparison) of exactly the same kind of pebbles, in the same kind of cement? I will lay no stress on the two cases of several ribs and bones of the extremities having APPARENTLY been embedded in their proper relative position: but will any one be so bold as to affirm that it is possible, that a piece of the thin tessellated armour of a Dasypoid quadruped, at least three feet long and two in width, and now so tender that I was unable with the utmost care to extract a fragment more than two or three inches square, could have been washed out of one bed, and re-embedded in another, together with some of the small bones of the feet, without having been dashed into atoms? We must then wholly reject M.

d'Orbigny's supposition, and admit as certain, that the Scelidotherium and the large Dasypoid quadruped, and as highly probable, that the Toxodon, Megatherium, etc., some of the bones of which are perfectly preserved, were embedded for the first time, and in a fresh condition, in the strata in which they were found entombed. These gigantic quadrupeds, therefore, though belonging to extinct genera and families, coexisted with the twenty above-enumerated Mollusca, the barnacle and two corals, still living on this coast. From the rolled fragment of black bone, and from the plain of Punta Alta being lower than that of Monte Hermoso, I conclude that the coa.r.s.e sub-littoral deposits of Punta Alta, are of subsequent origin to the Pampean mud of Monte Hermoso; and the beds at this latter place, as we have seen, are probably of subsequent origin to the high tosca-plain round the Sierra Ventana: we shall, however, return, at the end of this chapter, to the consideration of these several stages in the great Pampean formation.

BUENOS AYRES TO ST. FE BAJADA, IN ENTRE RIOS.

For some distance northward of Buenos Ayres, the escarpment of the Pampean formation does not approach very near to the Plata, and it is concealed by vegetation: but in sections on the banks of the Rios Luxan, Areco, and Arrecifes, I observed both pale and dark reddish Pampean mud, with small, whitish concretions of tosca; at all these places mammiferous remains have been found. In the cliffs on the Parana, at San Nicolas, the Pampean mud contains but little tosca; here M. d'Orbigny found the remains of two rodents (Ctenomys Bonariensis and Kerodon antiquus) and the jaw of a Canis: when on the river I could clearly distinguish in this fine line of cliffs, "horizontal lines of variation both in tint and compactness." (I quote these words from my note-book, as written down on the spot, on account of the general absence of stratification in the Pampean formation having been insisted on by M. d'Orbigny as a proof of the diluvial origin of this great deposit.) The plain northward of this point is very level, but with some depressions and lakes; I estimated its height at from forty to sixty feet above the Parana. At the A. Medio the bright red Pampean mud contains scarcely any tosca-rock; whilst at a short distance the stream of the Pabon, forms a cascade, about twenty feet in height, over a cavernous ma.s.s of two varieties of tosca-rock; of which one is very compact and semi- crystalline, with seams of crystallised carbonate of lime: similar compact varieties are met with on the Salidillo and Seco. The absolute ident.i.ty (I speak after a comparison of my specimens) between some of these varieties, and those from Tapalguen, and from the ridge south of Bahia Blanca, a distance of 400 miles of lat.i.tude, is very striking.

At Rosario there is but little tosca-rock: near this place I first noticed at the edge of the river traces of an underlying formation, which, twenty- five miles higher up in the estancia of Gorodona, consists of a pale yellowish clay, abounding with concretionary cylinders of a ferruginous sandstone. This bed, which is probably the equivalent of the older tertiary marine strata, immediately to be described in Entre Rios, only just rises above the level of the Parana when low. The rest of the cliff at Gorodona, is formed of red Pampean mud, with, in the lower part, many concretions of tosca, some stalacti-formed, and with only a few in the upper part: at the height of six feet above the river, two gigantic skeletons of the Mastodon Andium were here embedded; their bones were scattered a few feet apart, but many of them still held their proper relative positions: they were much decayed and as soft as cheese, so that even one of the great molar teeth fell into pieces in my hand. We here see that the Pampean deposit contains mammiferous remains close to its base. On the banks of the Carcarana, a few miles distant, the lowest bed visible was pale Pampean mud, with ma.s.ses of tosca-rock, in one of which I found a much decayed tooth of the Mastodon: above this bed, there was a thin layer almost composed of small concretions of white tosca, out of which I extracted a well preserved, but slightly broken tooth of Toxodon Platensis: above this there was an unusual bed of very soft impure sandstone. In this neighbourhood I noticed many single embedded bones, and I heard of others having been found in so perfect a state that they were long used as gate-posts: the Jesuit Falkner found here the dermal armour of some gigantic Edental quadruped.

In some of the red mud sc.r.a.ped from a tooth of one of the Mastodons at Gorodona, Professor Ehrenberg finds seven Polygastrica and thirteen Phytolitharia, all of them, I believe, with two exceptions, already known species. ("Monatsberichten der konig. Akad. zu Berlin" April 1845. The list consists of:--

POLYGASTRICA.

Campylodiscus clypeus.

Coscinodiscus subtilis.

Coscinodiscus al. sp.

Eunotia.

Gallionella granulata.

Himantidium gracile.

Pinnularia borealis.)