88 BAHIA BLANCA. [chap, v, 



conclude, against anterior probability,* that among the mam- 

 maiia there exists no close relation between the bulk of the 

 species, and the quajitity of the vegetation, in the countries 

 which they inhabit. 



With regard to the number of large quadrupeds, there cer- 

 tainly exists no quarter of the globe which will bear compaiison 

 with Southern Africa. After the different statements ^^■hich 

 have been given, the extremely desert character of that region 

 will not be disputed. In the European division of the world, 

 we must look back to the tertiary epochs, to find a condition of 

 things among the mammalia, resembling that now existing at 

 tlie Cape of Good Hope. Those tertiary epochs, which we 

 are apt to consider as abounding to an astonisiiing degree with 

 large animals, because we find the remains of many ages accu- 

 mulated at certain spots, could hardly boast of more large 

 quadrupeds than Southern Africa does at present. If we 

 speculate on the condition of the vegetation during those epochs, 

 we are at least bound so far to consider existing analogies, as 

 not to urge as absolutely necessary a luxuriant vegetation, 

 when we see a state of things so totally different at the Cape 

 of Good Hope. 



We knowf that the extreme regions of North America, many 

 degrees beyond the limit where the ground at the depth of a few 

 fe^^t remains perpetually congealed, are covered by forests of 

 large and tall trees. In a like manner, in Siberia, we have 

 woods of birch, fir, aspen, and larch, growing in a latitude^ 

 (64°), where the mean temperature of the air falls below the 

 freezing point, and where the earth is so completely frozen, that 



* If we suppose the case of the discovery of a skeleton of a Greenland 

 whale in a fossil state, not a single cetaceous animal being known to exist, 

 what naturalist would have ventured conjecture on the possibility of a car- 

 cass so gigantic being supported on the minute Crustacea and moUusca living 

 in the frozen seas of the extreme North ? 



f See Zoological Remarks to Capt. Back's Expedition, by Dr. Eichardson. 

 He says, " The subsoil north of latitude 5G° is perpetually frozen, the thaw- 

 on the coast not penetrating above three feet, and at Bear Lake, in Intitude 

 04°, not more than twenty inches. The frozen substratum does not of itself 

 destroy vegetation, for forests flourish on the surface, at a distance from the 

 coast." 



X See Humboldt, Fragraens Asiatiques, p. 38 G : Barton's Geography of 

 Plants: and JNIalte Brun. In the latter work it is said that the limit of the 

 growth of trees in Siberia may be dra-\vn under the parallel of 70°. 



