68 Difcovery of the Bones of a ^ladriiped. 



I have ufed the height alone of this animal to deduce his bulk, on the fuppofitlon that he 

 might have been formed in the proportions of the lion. But thefe were not his proportions, 

 lie was much thicker than the lion in proportion to his height, in his limbs certainly, and 

 probably therefore in his body. The diameter of his radius, at its upper end, is near 

 twice as great as that of the lion, and, at its lower end, more than thrics as great, which 

 gives a mean proportion of 24^ for 1. The femur of the lion was lefs than i| inch dia- 

 meter. That of the megalonyx is 4^^: inches, which is more than three for one. And as 

 bodies of the fame length and fubftancc have their weights proportioned to the fquares of 

 their diameters, this excefs of caliber compounded with the height, would greatly aggra- 

 vate the bulk of this animal. But when our fubjedt has already carried us beyond the 

 limits of nature hitherto known, it is fafelt to (lop at the mod moderate conclufions, and 

 not to follov/ appearances through all the conjectures they would furnifli, but leave thefe 

 to be corroborated or correfled by future difcoveries. Let us only fay then, what we may 

 fafcly fay, that he was more than three times as large as the lion : that he flood as pre- 

 eminently at the head of the column of clavyed animals as the mammoth flood at that of 

 the elephant, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus : and that he may have been as formidable an 

 antagonift to the mammoth as the lion to the elephant. 



A difKcult queflion now prefents itfelf. What is become of the great-claw ? Some light 

 may be thrown on this by afking another queflion. Do the wild animals of the firfl mag- 

 nitude in any'inflance fix their dwellings in a thickly inhabited country ? fuch, I mean, as 

 the elephant, the rhinoceros, the lion, the tyger ? as far as my reading and recolleftion 

 ferve me, I think they do not : but I hazard the opinion doubtingly, becaufe it is not the 

 refult of full enquiry. Africa is chiefly inhabited along the margin of its feas and rivers. 

 The interior defart is the domain of the elephant, the rhinoceros, the lion, the tyger. 

 Such individuals as have their haunts nearefl the inhabited frontier, enter it occafionally, 

 and commit depredations when prefTed by hunger: but the mafs of their nation (if I may 

 ufe the term) never approach the habitation of man, nor are within reach of it. When 

 our anceftors arrived here, the Indian population, below the falls of the rivers, was about 

 the twentieth part of what it now is. In this flate of things, an animal refembling the 

 lion feems to have been known even in the lower country. Mofl of the accounts given by 

 the earlier adventurers to this part of America make a lion one of the animals of our fo- 

 refls. Sir John Hawkins * mentions this in 1564. Thomas Harriot, a man of learning, 

 and of diflinguifhed candor, who refided in Virginia in 1587 f does the fame, fo alfo does 

 Bullock in his account of Virginia, J written about 1627, he fays he drew his Information 

 from Pierce, Willoughby, Claiborne, and others who had been here, and from his own 

 father who had lived here twelve years. It does not appear whether the fa£l is flated on 

 their own view, or on information from the Indians, probably the latter. The progrefs of 



* Hakluyt, 541. edition of IJ89. 



f Ibid. 757, and Smith's Hiftory of Virginia, lo. 



X Biillock, page 5. 



tlw 



