CERTAIN BONES, Sec. 251 



not his proportions, he was much thicker than the lion 

 in proportion to his height, in his Hmbs certainly, and 

 probably therefore in his body. The diameter of his ra- 

 dius, at its upper end, is near twice as great as that of 

 the lion, and, at its lower end, more than thrice as great, 

 which gives a mean proportion of 2^ for i . The femur 

 of the lion was lefs than i^ imh diameter. That of the 

 inegalonyx is 4^ inches, which is more than three for 

 one. And as bodies of the lame length and fubltance 

 have their weights proportioned to the fquares of their 

 diameters, this excefs of caliber compounded with the 

 height, would greatly aggravate the bulk of this animal. 

 But when our iul>je^t has already carried us beyond the 

 limits of nature hitherto known, it is fafeit to ilop at the 

 mofl: moderate conclufions, and not to follow appear- 

 ances through ail the conjecflures they would furnifii, 

 but leave thefe to be corroborated or corrcdted by future 

 difcoveries. Let us only iay then, what we may fafely 

 fay, that he was more than three times as large as the 

 lion : that he ftood as pre-eminently at the head of the 

 column of clawed 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 difficult quelHon now prefents itfelf. What is be- 

 come of the great-claw ? Some light may be thrown on 

 this by alking another queftion. Do the wild animals of 

 the firll: magnitude in any inftance fax their dwellings in 

 a thickly inhabited country? fuch, I mean, as the ele- 

 phant, the rhinoceros, the lion, the tvger ? 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 refuit 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. 



