The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-02-08
Special to The Globe.

Special to The Globe.
LONDON, Feb. THAT the modern
scientific expedition is more or less Of
the globes surface where there is ma
terial to be found to sell in editions de
luxe is proved by the results of that
of Mr.. Hesketh Prichard's trip to Pata-
gonia, under the auspices of Mr.. Pear
son. 1.
Prof. Lancaster, of the British mu-
scum, announced in a lecture delivered
in London some two or three years ago
his belief in the existence of the pre-
historic Mylodon or Giant Sloth, speci-
mems of which he thought might still
be found in the mountains of Pata-
gonia. His assumption was based more
or less on the statements made a year
or two before by DR.. Moreno, a traveller
and explorer who had personally in
vestigafed the Mylodon in his native
haunts, at least by hearsay.
Mr.. Pearson, thinking he could go
his rival, Harmsworth, one better, en-
gagged the services of Mr.. Hesketh
Prichard, quite a well known explorer
n writer. to direct an expedition to
explore Patagonia and bring back the
sloth or his skin.
Mr.. Prichard apparently had never
read 1.-THE Message to Garcia" and set
out in a humdrum, perfunctory way to
perform a task, which if accomplished
would nave been second only to the
capture of the Golden Fleece by Jason,
of Homeric reputation.
1t is a sad reflection upon the en-
terprise of the modern that
Mr.. Prichard did not bring back with
him so much as a skin or a tooth of
anything living in the present times
which would suggest descent from the
giant mammal of antiquity.
From the account given of his ex-
petition it does not appear that Mr..
Prichard penetrated as far as some
travellers have done from the civilized
zone although he found some regions
to which the white man had not hith-
erto %ventured. At any rate it is salts
flying to know that there are some
points left unexplored yet which will
remain available for the exploring re-
porter, not only for the sake of the
profession but for the sake of preda-
tory monarchs who may have designs
upon outlying points Of the earth's
crust to which the Monroe doctrine
might not apply on the ground that
they had not been discovered when that
immortal precept of the spread eagle
doctrine first asserted itself.
I Unless our memory serves us a trick,
some half a score of years ago a party
of explorers in Patagonia, among whom
vas a distinguished attache of a Ger
man university, encountered a monster
answering perfectly to the description
fcpiUon hy coiooficfo- 0f Tho NHrIo5oo A.
cording as 1 remember the account to
have been published in both American
and European papers there were three
\ scientists in the party and but one Of
these survived to tell the story of their
adventures in Patagonia. The German,
according to this report, fell a victim
to the mysterious reptile or mammal
which was taken for the sloth and
which was encountered in some vast
virgin solitude on that inhospitabIe
plateau of the Andes described by some
who have been there as being beyond
the possibility of actual words to con-
vey its desolateness. Whether it was
a mirage Of the pre-tertiary fossil
which appeared to the travellers, for
mirages are as plentiful in Patagonia
as leaves in Vallambrosa, or whether it
was an actual great sloth, for these
monsters might have retired to the
fastness of such a remote region and
even have their h~abitations yet in some
Of the vast caverns of the mountain
ranges, cannot be told.
For what possibilities must there be
in the direction of surviving specimens
of prehistoric animals in a country
which even a non-venturesome traveller
like Prichard in one of his references
describes as follows:
Three great parallel divisions, run
ming north and south. of plain, lake and
mountain, each strongly marked, make
up the face of the country. From the
shores of the Atlantic, the pampas rise
in gently graduated terraces to the
range of the Andes, while between them
is serung a mighty network of lakes and
lagoons, some connected by rivers, TIL
ers by channels, many of which shift
and alter under the influence of climate
and other local cause From the sea
to- the Sierra Nevada stretch the PAM
pas. all tussocky grass, thorn, g1an--
acos and mirages. On the western rim
Of the panpas the Cordillera stand
against the sky, a tuInult of mountains
climbing upward, their loftier gorges
choked with glaciers, their hollows
holding great lakes, ice-cold, ice-bIue,
and about their bases and their bas-
tons thousands Of square miles of
shaggy forests, of which but the merest
edges have been yet explored
The fact that the merest edges of the
forests have been UNEMPLOYED leaves us
room for that delightful uncertainty upon
the chaArful abandon which produce