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[annotation in another hand:] in re Toxodon

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The head was found embedded in whitish earthy clay on the banks of the Arroyo Sarandis, a small stream which enters the Rio Negro and is situated 120 miles to the NW of Monte Video.— The head had been kept for a short time  in a neighbouring farm house   as a curiosity, but when I arrived, it was lying on in the ground yard.— I bought it for the value of eighteen pence. The people informed  me  that when first discovered, about two years previously, it was quite perfect, but that the boys had since knocked out the teeth and had put it on a post as a mark, to throw stones at. They showed me the spot where  it had been found  after that a sudden flood had washed down part of the bank, it had been found Several imperfect fragments of bone and of an armadillo-like case were lying at the bottom of the almost dry watercourse. Some of these I collected, but from the disturbed state of the country the box in which they were packed was delayed on the road, and was afterwards sent direct to England. From this reason the temporary marks by which I had distinguished these bones from another set, found at the distance of several leagues, were lost, and I am now unable to say which are the fragments.— The foundation of the whole of this country is granitic, the surface being covered often to a considerable depth by a red clayey soil containing small calcareous concretions. The white colour of

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of the bed in which the head was found is an unusual ocurrence.— I have good reason for believing, that this matter has been estuary deposit, of the rivers, since called La Plata, at a period when the land was at a lower lever, part of which change has taken place during recent times.—

The pampas consists of a similar formation, only more regularly stratified of greater thickness, and overlaying in some parts, strata containing marine remains.  The tooth which fits one of the sockets of the head was found within this grand deposit   (I extracted from a layer of rock marl in the cliffs of)  on the banks of the  Rio Cañcaraña, which is distant from the Sarandis 170 miles. It was embedded in an indurated rock marl, one point alone being visible, and no other bones occurred in the immediate vicinity. This river has been celebrated since the time of the Jesuit Falkner for the number of great bones, and large fragments of the armadillo-like case found in its bed.— The inhabitants told me that they had made gate-posts of some leg-bones, and I myself saw two groups in situ of the remains remains of a mastodon projecting from a cliff.— But they were  in  so decayed  a state that  I could only extract  bring away  fr small portions of a molar tooth.—

[annotation in another hand:] MS. Autograph of Charles Darwin.