210 On the peopling of America. 



housed. Hence it follows, tliat tiiey were shrivelled and di- 

 minished, bv cold storuis, hail and snow, as the human species 

 have been diminished in La])land and Siberia. In addition to 

 those diminishing causes, the first colonists, in most cases, were 

 inattentive to the size of the male or female from which their 

 cattle were to spring. We have a remarkable instance, in the 

 Chickesaw nation, of the bad effects of breeding from diminutive 

 parents. Those Indians were originally furnished by De Soto 

 with a breed of Spanish horses*. In that country the horses 

 provided for themselves, the soil being good and the climate 

 warm. The Indians, towards the middle of the last century, 

 discovered that their horses were a valuable article of commerce ; 

 they could i>e exchanged for guns, blankets, and other neces- 

 saries ; but the traders, in all cases, bought the largest horses, 

 and the smallest were left to continue the breed. The effect is 

 obvious, for the Chickesaw horses are confessedly smaller than 

 thev were fifty years ago. Other causes, sufficiently numerous, 

 may be given of quadrupeds degenerating in America, under the 

 shrivelling hand of indolence and neglect ; but it would not fol- 

 low, from a thousand such examples, that America cannot pro- 

 duce a race of animals large and vigorous as similar animals in 

 the old continent. I do not say that America has produced 

 greater or stronger animals than ever were seen on the opposite 

 part of the globe, but we ki^.ow that bones have been found, 

 both in North and South America, of sundry animals, granivorous 

 and carnivorous, that were greatly superior in size to the ele- 

 phant, the lion, or any other beast now living in the old conti- 

 nent. Although the beast, whose bones and claws were lately 

 found in Green-Brier, in Virginiaf, must have been a carnivorous 

 animal, and greatly superior to the lion in strength, we cannot 

 affirm that he was equally fierce ; for it is admitted, that lions- 

 who are found near mount Atlas are neither so fierce nor strong 

 as those which are nourished on the burning deserts of Nigritia. 

 From this we infer, that extreme heat conduces to the ferocity 

 of beasts of prey, and that animals of the carnivorous kind arc 

 less ferocious in America than in the hotter regions of the other 

 continent. With respect to our domestic animals, whose parents 

 have been imported from Europe, we should not boast in our 

 turn, by saying that the present race is larger or stronger than 

 those who were imported ; but we may affirm, without danger 

 of being refuted, that there are numerous instances of cattle, 

 lately raised in the United States, full as large as any of the same 

 kind m Europe. If it should be alleged that animals frequently 



• De Soto passed a winter among the Chickcsaws, near tlie river Missis- 

 sippi, and left some of his horses there, 

 t See Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. iv. p. 216. 



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