1'2G NATURAL AND CIVIL 



lions, tygers, and panthers. No part of the 

 clluiate of America is bO intensely hot, or sandy, 

 as to render it the proper country for the pro= 

 duction or increase of animals, so fierce and 

 noxious. These quadrupeds of hot climates, 

 have never wandered from the one country, to 

 the other : Not because they could not find a 

 passage, but because they must have passed 

 through a climate, the cold of which, being 

 sucli as they could not endure, M'as an effectual 

 bar to theif passage. There are otiier quadru- 

 peds which are common to America, to the 

 north of Asia, and to Europe. Of this kind 

 are the bufl'alo, white bear, carabou, black bear, 

 eik, moose, red deer, fallow deer, wolf, roe^ 

 glutton, lynx, wild cat, beaver, badger, red fox, 

 grey fox, black fox, otter, monax, vison, por- 

 cupine, martin, water rat, ^v^easel, ermine, flying 

 squirrel, mole, and mouse. If we add the un- 

 known animal, v/hich we have called the mam- 

 moth, the number of those quadrupeds which 

 arc common to both hemispheres, will amount 

 to thirty. All of them, are the quadrupeds oF 

 cold countries ; fitted by nature to that climate, 

 through which the passage must have been, 

 from the one country to the other. The origin- 

 al situation therefore of these quadrupeds, must 

 have been a cold country. But whether they 

 passed from the nortlieastern parts of Asia, into 

 America ; or whether they issued from the 

 northwest parts of America, into Asia ; we have 

 no way to determine. The probaJDility is equal, 

 upon either supposition. All that we can de- 

 termine is, that they were originally the quad- 

 rupeds of a cold climate. 



