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What an American Explorer Found in a Patagonian Cavern QTORY of Ckarles Wellington Furlong, F

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What an American Explorer Found in a Patagonian Cavern QTORY of Ckarles Wellington Furlong, F MAGAZINE SECTION % FICTION ffot to. FEATURES Part 4.8 Pages WASHINGTON, D. C., SUNDAY MORNING, APRIL 9, 1922. What an American Explorer Found in a Patagonian Cavern QTORY of CKarles Wellington Furlong, F. R. G. S., Famous as a Scientist, Brings ^ Up Possibility of Finding So-Called Extinct Animals in Unexplored Regions of the Earth.Remarkable Find of Remains of Pampean Ground-Sloth in Cave in Heart of the Andes Article R.eads Like Fiction, But Specimens Are Now on Ex¬ hibition.Late Reports of Seeing Gigantic Animal in South America.The Expe¬ dition Headed by Prof. 0 Nelli, Director of the Zoo at Buenos Aires. the with innumerable lakes clothed to other forms of bony armor reach the with edge of their glistening peaks very surface of the dermis and are impenetrable forests, and on the east merely infested with horny epidermis. they are edged by the Patagonian the west seared on * * * * plains and on innumerable ! their coastal edges with what did and coves, with WELU this thing: look ! channelwavs, inlets and when did of mountainous islands like, it live, you I an outer line will ask. It is the Patagonian channels. naturally possible to forming of reconstruct with the evidence at hand The islands are t^e mountain tops which were un- with reasonable exactitude a pic¬ the western ranges, ture of this when the land sank. The great, gfcint ground sloth, submerged had one the skill and are their valleys, into imagination of channelways Mr. Knight of the American Museum which the cold waters of the southern of Natural History. As yet I am not oceans have swirled. was Last aware that such a picture has-been -¦ - this ---.¦¦ ^ The name of place made, but ancient chroniclers .:I V Hope inlet. This was named by the among expedition, the indigenious inhabitants of Pata¬ THREE WARRIORS OF A PATAGON'IAN TRIBE, THE TEH I ELCHES. famous H. M. S. BAigle gonia tell that their earlier Darwin was a member. It people WHOSE ANCESTORS HAVE A LEGEND CONCERNING THE GREAT HAIRY of which recorded the existence of a end of a long zig-zag- strange, ANIMAL WHICH UNDOUBTEDLY WAS THE GRYPOTHERIl'M. was the ver> ugly, hairy animal which had its maze of channelways that led ging abode In the Cordillera, the ranges into the very heart of the Andes of the Andes to the south of east, man, and that this g-reat cavern was one suddenly wake from a long som¬ themselves. which would be used as an old corral which these had crossed, how¬ latitude 37 degrees. My in* nambulance from his epoch he would My expedition friends, the Tehuelches (southern Pata- hairy grypotheria were captives. quickly expire and suffer the bitter ever. from the east, after a rough Still another THE MOST I'MSl Al, PIECE OF HIDE IN THE WORLD, FOUND IX One morn¬ gonians) have mentioned similar ani¬ question may possibly tragedy of having awakened from a journey over the Andes. arise in the minds those THE PATAttOXIAX CAVEUX, WHICH NOW REPOSES IX THE BRITISH named mals, about whose existence they say of gifted Mesozoic trance about thirty million ing. with a young pioneer with such too late. Ml SEI M. THE WHITE LIKE SMALL ARE SMALL and their ancestors had transmitted the re¬ imagination, particularly years As H. G. Wells says, SPOTS, PEBBLES. Eberhart and my companion in view of the recent reported "The BOXES. FORMIXG A PART membrance. seeing pediod in which the marine OF THE ANIMAL'S ARMOR. guide who had crossed Patagonia of the so-called Is it the low shrub One question that will naturally plesiosaurus. monster thrived was between two with me. I rode through that mon¬ beeches arise is as- to the age of epoch in possible any of these great hundred and sixty and two hundred BY CHARLES F. of Califate and low-growing sters of an ancient still and WELLINGTON FURLONG, R. G. S. sides of the which these great ground sloths am¬ epoch might sixty-five million years ago, and to the great mountain bled over the land. Close to the l>e inhabiting those mysterious un¬ the abrupt ending of the marine rep¬ PERHAPS no part of this great globe of ours has offered greater Andes. We soon came to the broad bones, in th* same identical layer, explored Patagonian mountain wil¬ tile is beyond all question the most stimuli for the imagination than South America. The very first ex¬ entrance of an enormous cavern dernesses? in stones polished by the hand of man striking revolution in the whole his¬ plorers back marvelous tales from Columbus' time which nature had sculptured out of the earth before the brought on, hole from have been found, also flints cut in the * * * * tory coming a great, quadri-spherieal of man. It is connected and even Shakespeare records reports in his day from the Guianas like formamtion of same manner as those found in the probably the pudding-stone Pampean formation. Also other evi¬ t I rELL, that same question being with the close of a vast period of of there whose heads did below their as tertiary conglom- beings grow shoulders. Always to the rock known dences the contention that asked a few years ago. caused equable, warm conditions and the on¬ In fact, it closely resembled support those there was a new Eldorado ahead of them. erate. the in be¬ the London Daily Mail to outfit an set of a new austere age in which the early conquistadores just what is known in Massachusetts as large quadruped question to an extinct fauna, expedition under the direction of winters were bitterer and the sum¬ Here the great inland reaches of this vast continent have been claimed as A number of longs though Roxbury puddingstone. with man. and that this Hesketh Pritchard, to try to solve this mers briefer but hot." " or less obscured cotemporary the of that race of the Amazons. trees more the, sloth in the problem. This expedition was the re¬ Who has not heard of the dramatic region halt-mythical of this cave, ground "disappeared only immediate opening great which is called the historical sult of the discovery of the famous discovery of the great mammoth Only a few years ago Conan laid the of a on some the floor of which was covered with epoch Doyle plot story | of our America." grypotherium skin and remains in the found encased in ice in northern Si¬ land of dust and deposits which epoch high plateau the interior of Brazil. The plot of this remarkable gravel-like But there were further wonders re- Patagonian cave. The Expedition beria? Yet the find of the remains had accumulated over the gradual yarn had for its central motive exploration in search of a prehistoric vealed in this great Patagonian cav- went and brought back some inter¬ of the grypotheriumllstai is a dis¬ away of the cavern's roof. monster in falling ern in connection with the remains esting and valuable scientific results, covery "unique in the history of pale¬ of the existence of which these regions Doyle's characters I had heard of this remarkable of Grypotherium-listaf. The re- out did not catch a glimpse of a ontology on account of the remark¬ were to have obtained The adventures and romance re¬ cave of certain animal remains of supposed proof. mains themselves were found beneath grypotherium. However, in my opin- ably fresh state of preservation of all extinct fauna which had been found volve around their hunt for this beast. the dried earth on the floor of that ion, the expedition never penetrated the remains; some of the new speci¬ strange there. It resulted in my inspecting enormous chamber which; according far enough to actually give the mat¬ mens exhibit no indication whatever Now comes a report of a great monster seen swimming recently in an the cave very carefully and, through' Dr. Hauthal. ter a fair test. They stopped at the of having been buried. Many of the to some to the geologist. Rudolph Andean lake and to which the has seen fit to attach the excavating, bringing light seemed to have been artificially in¬ point, more or less, from which they bones retain th*ir original whitish press pseudonym finds. The top sur- LIEUT. COL. CHARLES WELLINGTON FIRLONG, EXPLORER, very Interesting cased by rude walls. In one spot should really have started. Beyond color, apparently without loss of plesiosaurus. However much the world may shrug its shoulders in doubt face was a thin of this dust Al'THOR AND SCIENTIST, WHO MADE REMARKABLE DISCOVERIES IN layer these remains were "scattered them, .north and south, lay thousands gelatin, while both these and other as to the truth of such a record, it has been taken j in which could be found PATAGONIA. HE WAS STATIONED IN WASHINGTON DURING PART OF seriously enough by deposit, a thick of excrement of square miles of mountain valley bones, which have evidently been en¬ shells and of recent ani- HIS SERVICE IN THE WAR. through deposit Prof. O'Nelli, director of the zoo at Buenos to. induce him to start ashes, benes of some herbivore (herb- and densest kind of forests, in many tombed in fresh dust, bear numerous .^6$, broken by man. The gigantic organizing an expedition to attempt to run down this creature. Accord¬ mals, probably .-ating), evidently the ground sloth parts impenetrable to man save remnants not only of the dried contained. besides to an a .central layer sider it be that of extinct hear where compact armor for the pro- itself; in another spot they were as¬ through the greatest labors.
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