Reports of the Princeton University Expeditions to Patagonia, 1896-1899. Botany, Vol. VIII, 2

1905-11

Expedition Reports Q115 P9 1896

Princeton: The University

Sixty years after Charles Darwin and Robert FitzRoy made the fossil fauna of South America known to the world, John Bell Hatcher (d. 1904), Princeton University’s curator of vertebrate palaeontology, led three expeditions to Patagonia, from 1896 to 1899. After arriving in Patagonia with the help of the Argentinian navy, Hatcher and his team travelled largely on horseback with a wagon to carry supplies and specimens. The primary objective was to research the geology and palaeontology of the region, but all manner of animal and plant species were collected. Such was the extent of the specimens gathered that some of the reports for the expedition were still being written thirty years later.