72 Difcovtry of the Bones of a ^adniped. 



fuperior to that of the largeft elephants. That he was the primary and greateft of all 

 terreftrial animals." If the bones of the megalonyx be afcribed to the lion, they muft cer- 

 tainly have been of a lion of more than three times the volume of the African. I delivered 

 to M. de BufFon the Ikeleton of our palmated elk, called orignal o r moofe, feet high 

 over the fhoulders, he is often confiderably higher. I cannot find that the European elk is 

 more than two-thirds of that height : confequently not one-third of the bulk of the Ame- 

 rican. He* acknowledges the palmated deer (daim) of America to be larger and ftronger 

 than that of the Old World. He f confiders the round horned deer of thefe States and of 

 Louifiana as the roe, and admits they are of three times his fize. Are we then from all 

 this to draw a conclufion, the reverfe of that of M. de BuiFon. That nature, has formed 

 the larger animals of America, like its lakes, its rivers, and mountains, on a greater and 

 prouder fcale than in the other hemifphere ? Not at all, we are to conclude that (he has 

 formed fome things large and fome things fmall, on both fides of the earth, for reafons 

 which fhe has not enabled us to penetrate; and that we ought not to fliut our eyes upon one 

 half of her fa£ts, and build fyftems on the other half. 



To return to our great-claw; I depofit his bones with the Philofophical Society, as well 

 in evidence of their exiftence and of their dimenfions, as for their fafe-keeping; and I Ihall 

 think it my duty to do the fame by fuch others as I may be fortunate enough to obtain the 

 recovery of hereafter. 



TH: JEFFERSON. 

 Montlcello. Feb.iOth, 1797. 



P. S. March loth, 1797. After the preceding communication was ready to be delivered 

 in to the Society, in a J periodical publication from London I met with an account and 

 drawing of the (keleton of an animal dug up near the river La Plata in Paraguay, and now 

 mounted in the cabinet of Natural Hillory of Madrid. The figure is not fo done as to be 

 relied on, and the account is only an abftra£l from that of Cuvier and Roume. This 

 fkeleton is alfo of the clawed-kind, and having only four teeth on each fide above and 

 below, all grinders, is in this account clafled in the family of unquiculated quadrupeds 

 deftitute of cutting teeth, and receives the new denomination of megatherium, having 

 nothing of our animal but the leg and foot bones, we have few points for a comparifon 

 between them. They refemble in their ftature, that being 12 feet 9 inches long, and 

 6 feet 4| inches high, and ours by computation 5 feet 1.75 inches high: they are alike in 

 the coloflal thicknefs of the thigh and leg bones alfo. They refemble too in having claws : 

 but thofe of the figure appear very fmall, and the verbal defcription does not fatisfy us 

 whether the claw-bone, or only its horny cover be large. They agree too in the circum- 

 ftance of the two bones of the fore-arm being diftinft and moveable on each other ; which 

 however is believed to be fo ufual as to form no mart of diflindion. They differ in the 



• Buffon, icxix. 145. f Ibid, xii. 91; 91, xxix. 145. Vide Suppl, 20it 



X Monthly Magazine, Sep. 1796, 



following 



