From the bones in one of the skeletons, and likewise from those in part of another, being embedded in their proper relative positions, the carcasses of the animals, when they perished, were probably drifted to this spot in an entire state. The gravel, from its stratification and general appearance, exactly resembles that which is every day accumulating in banks, where either tides or currents meet; and the embedded shells are of littoral species. But from the skeleton, in one instance, being in a position nearly undisturbed, and from the abundance of serpulæ and encrusting corallines adhering to some of the bones, the water, at the time of their burial, must have been deeper than at present. This conclusion might also have been inferred from the fact, that in the neighbouring cliff the same bed, with its shells, has been uplifted some yards above high-water mark. On the coast to the southward abundant proofs occur, of a recent elevation of the continent. In the gravel, nearly all the pebbles are of quartz, and have originally proceeded from the lofty range of the Ventana, distant between forty and fifty miles. Besides the pebbles of quartz, there are a few irregular masses of the same indurated marl, of which the escarpment of the neighbouring great plain is composed. Hence the gravel beds must have been deposited, when the plain existed as dry land; and on it probably those great animals once lived, of which we now find only the remains. The indurated marl forming the plain, is the same kind of rock with that occurring over a wide extent of the Pampas; and there is no reason to doubt, they are parts of one great formation. Nevertheless, the gravel bed of Bahia Blanca, although subsequent to the calcareous formation, may be of the same age with those parts of the Pampas, which stand at a low level near the Plata. For on this whole line of coast, I believe, as the land has continued rising, fresh littoral deposits have been formed; and each of these would often owe part of its materials to the degradation of the one last elevated.