abundantly as in the valley of the Plate; in fact, most are unknown in other parts of the world. The National Museum at Buenos Ayres has a collection especially of Glyptodons and Megatheriums unequaled by any museum in the world; has, indeed, of the former a greater number than are to be found in all other collections. These fossils, found in the Argentine Republic, are objects of special legislation, inasmuch as Congress has by law forbidden their exportation except with the consent of the director of the museum. This consent is given only in those cases where duplicates equally good and interesting are already in the museum. Dr. Burmeister informs me that there are but three specimens of the Glyptodon anything like complete in European museums, and that in the United States he believes there are none. Even those which are in Europe are imperfect in some important features; none of them, for instance, showing the interesting annular connections between the carapace and the base of the tail, thus very much marring the symmetrical appearance which the fossil in reality possesses. The Glyptodon, as will be remembered, is one of the most conspicuous objects in the collection of casts of fossils made at Rochester, and now found in several American museums.
During my stay in Buenos Ayres there has been exhumed a more perfect Glyptodon than any yet in foreign museums, and, as Prof. Burmeister has the same species, I have bought it and shall bring it to the United States.
Besides the remains of extinct animals, the National Museum is rich in specimens of recent fauna, particularly insects. It also contains many objects of archæological and historical interest. Its mineralogical collection is of very trifling importance.
At present the museum appears to be overfilled, and it is evident that larger accommodations than the present are very much needed.
Dr. Burmeister has published the Anales del Museo Público now for a number of years, which contains excellent and detailed descriptions of many new species, the originals of which are in the museum. In this work the huge edentates and other mammalia which have made this museum so famous are described and figured.
Scientific Journals in Buenos Ayres.—In 1873 there was published a journal devoted to science, denominated El Ateno Argentino. It, however, expired, after six numbers had appeared. It was, I believe, a monthly.
The following year in May the Anales Científicos Argentinos was begun as a scientific monthly, of about thirty-two pages each number. The copy now before me contains about twenty pages of original investigation, the balance excerpta and translations. Five numbers of this journal appeared when the Mitré revolution, which for the time being paralyzed so many undertakings, extinguished also this laudable private enterprise.
A few months ago the Sociedad Científica Argentina, of which I
