ed to produce this, while proper obstacles were opposed to its further progress. Below these limits they cannot fall, nor rise above them. What intermediate station they shall take may depend on soil, on climate, on food, on a careful choice of breeders. But all the manna of heaven would never raise the mouse to the bulk of the mammoth. The opinion advanced by the Count de Buffon, is 1. That the animals common both to the old and new world, are smaller in the latter. 2. That those peculiar to the new are on a smaller scale. 3. That those which have been domesticated in both, have degenerated in America and 4. That on the whole it exhibits fewer species. And the reason he thinks is, that the heats of America are less; that more waters are spread over its. surface by nature, and fewer of these drained off by the hand of man. In other words, that beat is friendly, and moisture adverse to the production and developement of large quadrupeds. I will not meet this hypothesis on its first doubtful ground, whether the climate of America be comparatively more humid? Because we are not furnished with observations sufficient to decide this question. And though, till it be decided, we are as free to deny, as others are to affirm the fact, yet for a moment let it be supposed. The hypothesis, after this supposition, proceeds to another; that moisture is unfriendly to animal growth. The truth of this is inscrutable to us by reasoning a priori. Nature has hidden from * Buffon, xviii. 100-150. us her modus agendi. Our only appeal on such questions is to experience; and I think that experience is against the supposition. It is by the assistance of heat and moisture that vege. tables are elaborated from the elements of earth, air, water, and fire. We accordingly see the more humid climates produce the greater quan. tity of vegetables. Vegetables are mediately or immediately the food of every animal and in proportion to the quantity of food, we see animals not only multiplied in their numbers, but improved in their bulk, as far as the laws of their nature will admit. Of this opinion is the Count de Buffon himself in another part of his work: "en general il paroit ques les pays un peu froids conviennent mieux a nos boeufs que les pays chauds, et qu'ils sont d'autant plus gross et plus grands que le climat est plus bumide et plus abondans en pasturages. Les boeufs de Danemarck, de la Podolie, de l'Ulkraine et de la Tartarie que habitant les Calmouques sont les plus grands de tous.” Here then a race of animals, and one of the largest too, has been increased in its dimensions by cold and moisture, in direct opposition to the hypothesis, which supposes that these two circumstances diminish animal bulk, and that it is their contraries beat and dryness which enlarge it. But when we appeal to experience, we are not to rest satisfied with a single fact. Let us therefore try our question on more general ground. Let us take two portions of the earth, Europe and America for instance, sufficiently * viii. 134. extensive to give operation to general causes ; let us consider the circumstances peculiar to each, and observe their effect on animal nature. America running through the torrid as well as temperate zone, has more beat collectively taken, than Europe. But Europe, according to our hypothesis, is the dryest. They are equally adapted then to animal production; each being endowed with one of those causes which befriend animal growth, and with one which opposes it. If it be thought unequal to compare Europe with America, which is so much larger, I answer, not more so than to compare America with the whole world. Besides, Besides, the purpose of the comparison is to try an hypothesis, which makes the size of animals depend on the beat and moisture of climate. If therefore we take a region, so extensive as to comprehend a sensible distinction of climate, and so extensive too as that local accidents, or the intercourse of animals on its borders, may not materially affect the size of those in its interior parts, we shall comply with those conditions which the hypothesis may reasonably demand. The objection would be the weaker in the present case, because any intercourse of animals which may take place on the confines of Europe and Asia, is to the advantage of the former, Asia producing certainly larger animals than Europe. Let us then take a comparative view of the quadrupeds of Europe and America, presenting them to the eye in three different tables, in one of which shall be enumerated those found in both countries; in a second, those found in one only; third, those which have been domesticated in both. To faciliate the comparison, let those of each table be arranged in gradation according to their sizes, from the greatest to the smallest, so far as their sizes can be conjectured. The weights of the large animals shall be expressed n the English avourdupoise and its decimals : those of the smaller, in the same ounce and its decimals. Those which are marked thus*, are actual weights of particular subjects, deemed among the largest of their species. Those marked thust, are furnished by judicious persons, well acquainted with the species, and saying, from conjecture only, what the largest individual they had seen would probably have weighed. The other weights are taken from Messrs. Buffon and D'Aubenton, and are of such subjects as came casually to their hands for dissection. This circumstance must be remembered where their weights and mine stand opposed: the latter being stated, not to produce a conclusion in favour of the American species, but to justify a suspension of opinion until we are better informed, and a suspicion, in the mean time, that there is no uniform difference in favour of either; which is all I pretend, |