Beginnings of Natural History in America. 365 



he filled several important ecclesiastical offices and died February 15, 

 1600, rector of the University of Salamanca. His first book, De Nat- 

 vra Novi Orbis lyibri dvo, was published in 1589. His Historia Natvral 

 y Moral delas ludias appeared in 1590, and is one of the l)est known and 

 most useful of the early vSpanish works on America, havinti; passed throut^h 

 numerous editions in many languages. 



Acosta was, perhaps, the most learned of the early writers upon Amer- 

 ica, and his writings, though modeled after those of the mediaeval 

 schoolmen, were full of suggestive observations, "touching the naturall 

 historic of the heavens, ayre, water, and earth at the West Indies, also 

 of their beasts, fishes, fowles, plants, and other remarkable varieties of 

 nature." He discoursed "of the fashion and form of heaven at the 

 new-found world," "of the ayre and the winds," of ocean physics, of 

 volcanoes and earthquakes, as well as of metals, pearls, emeralds, trees, 

 beasts, and fowls. 



He discussed the appearance and habits of the manatee and the croc- 

 odile, and described the Indian methods of whaling and pearl fishing. 

 He dwelt at length upon the condition of the domestic animals, sheep, 

 kine, goats, horses, asses, dogs, and cats which the vSpaniards had intro- 

 duced into the New World and which w^ere already thoroughly accli- 

 mated. It seems strange to learn from his pages that in the 3'ear 1587, 

 99,794 hides of domestic cattle were exported from Santo Domingo and 

 New Spain to Seville. Lynceus has suggested that some of these skins 

 were from the bison herds, believed at that time to have been abundant 

 in the north of Mexico. 



He gives a formidable catalogue of the animals of Central and vSouth 

 America, in w'hich occur the familiar names of armadillo, iguana, chin- 

 chilla, viscacha, vicugna, paco, and guanaco, and describes many of them 

 at length, especially the peccary (Sa/no), the tapirs, the sloths, and the 

 vicugna. He speaks of the cochineal insect, which had already become 

 of importance in the arts. 



He was the first to call attention to the existence in South America of 

 immense fossil bones ; these he supposed to be the remains of gigantic 

 individuals of the human species. 



His description of the flora is very full, and he dwells at length upon 

 the useful applications of the cacao bean and its product, the drink 

 which they call chocolate — "whereof they make great account in that 

 country, foolishly and without reason" — the plantain, the yucca, the 

 cassava, the maguey, the tunall or cactus, and very many more. 



It is, however, as a scientific theorist that Acosta has the highest 

 claim to our attention. He appears to have been the first to discuss 

 America from the standpoint of the zoogeographer. 



In considering the question, "How it should be possible that at the 

 Indies there should be any sorts of beasts, whereof the like are nowhere 

 else, ' ' he owns that he is quite unable to determine whether they were 



