, Dif cowry of the Bones of a ^ladruped. <jx 



getable, and mineral. If this animal then has once exifted, it is probable on this general 

 view of the movements on nafure that he ftill exifts, and rendered flill more probable by 

 the relations of honeft men applicable to him and to him alone. It would indeed be but 

 conformable to the ordinary economy of nature to conjedlure that (he had oppofed fuffl- 

 cient barriers to the too great multiplication of fo powerful a deftroyer. If lions and tygers 

 multiplied as rabbits do, or eagles as pigeons, all other animal nature would have been long 

 ago deftroyed, and themfelves would have ultimately extingulflied after eating out their 

 paflure. It is probable then that the great-claw has at all times been the rareft of animals. 

 Hence fo little is known, and fo little remains of him. His exiftence however being at 

 length difcovered, enquiry will be excited, and further information of him will probably 

 be obtained. 



The Cofmogony of M. de BufFon fuppofes that the earth, and all the other planets pri- 

 mary and fecondary, have been mafies of melted matter (truck off from the fun by the in- 

 cidence of a comet on it : that thefe have been cooling by degrees, firft at the poles, and 

 afterwards more and more towards their, equators: confequently that on our earth there 

 has been a time when the temperature of the poles fuited the conftitution of the elephant, 

 the rhinoceros, and hippopotamus ; and in proportion as the remoter zones became fuc- 

 ceffively too cold, thefe animals have retired more and more towards the equatorial regions, 

 till now that they are reduced to the torrid zone as the ultimate ftage of their exiftence. 

 To fupport this theory, he • affumes the tulks of the mammoth to have been thofe of an 

 elephant, fome of his teeth to have belonged to the hippopotamus, and his largeft grinders- 

 to an animal much greater than either, and to have been depofited on the MiiTouri, the 

 Ohio, the Holfton, when thofe latitudes were not yet too cold for the conftitutions of thefe 

 animals. Should the bones of our animal, which may hereafter be found, differ only in 

 fize from thofe of the Hon, they may on this hypothefis be claimed for the lion, now alfo 

 reduced to the torrid zone, and its vicinlaes, and may be confidered as an additional proof 

 of this fyftem ; and that there has been a time when our latitudes fuited the lion as well as 

 the other animals of that temperament. This- is not the place to difcufs theories of the 

 earth, nor to queftion the gratuitous allotment to different animals of teeth not differing in 

 any circumftance. But let us for a moment grant this with his former poflulata, and afk, 

 how they will conGli with another theory of his " qu'il y a dans la combinaifon des element* 

 et des autres caufes phyfi^ues, quelque chofe de contraire a I'aggrandifement de la nature, 

 vivante dans ce nouveau monde; qu'il y a des obftacles au developpement et peutetre a la 

 formation des grands germes t." He fays that the mammoth was an elephant, yet \ two 

 or three times as large as the elephants of Afia and Africa : that fome of his teeth were 

 thofe of a hippopotamusr, yet of a hippopotamus § four times as large as thofe of Africa; 

 that the mammoth himfelf, for he ftlU confiders him as a diftindt animal ||, " was of a fize 



* BufFon, Epoq. 2. 233, 234. f BufFon, xviii. 145. X ^- Epoq. 2»3,. 



^ 1. Epoq. 14(1. ». Epoq. 231, y 2 Epoq. 234,235. 



4, , fiiperior 



