270 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



conjectures which have been ventured in explanation 

 of this heap of remains of an animal so wholly foreign 

 to the country. Recourse was had to inundations, re- 

 markable changes in the climate, the earth's centre of 

 gravity, and the earth's axis. The American hunters 

 are content to explain the death of these animals, taken 

 to be elephants really, by the severity of a winter 

 which they were not able to withstand ; and in support 

 of their opinion they say that very often uncommonly 

 hard winters kill in quantities other animals ranging 

 in this part of the earth.* But it is at once seen that 

 so local a cause cannot have worked the destruction of 

 these animals in the warmer climate of South America. 

 However, no one was happier in his conjectures on 

 this subject than the author + of the Essai sur I'origine 

 de la population de I'Amerique, Tom. II. p. 298, who 

 (whether in jest or earnest is not known) regards all 

 these bones as nothing less than what remains of a 

 troop (equipped with six-pound molar-teeth?) of 

 fallen angels, according to his system the original in- 

 habitants of the earth in its first and glorious state, 

 until for their transgressions they and their dwelling 

 place the earth were condemned to a common ruin, 

 and hereupon the remnant of the purified planet was 

 made fit for the reception of the present improved 

 race of the children of men. 



I return again to the regions about Pittsburg. In 



* During the very hard winter of 1779-80, (among others,) 

 there were found dead here and there great numbers of deer 

 in the interior woods of America and in the mountains ; often 

 many together, by frozen springs where in other seasons they 

 had been accustomed to drink or to lick salt. And during that 

 winter other animals and numbers of birds succumbed. 



