ILLUSTRATIONS (26), ANIMALS YIELDING MILK. 125 



trees, driven thither from America; and this drift-wood, 

 which formerly came in greater abundance, was used for the 

 purposes of building, and cut into boards and laths. The 

 fruits of tropical plants collected on the Icelandic shores, 

 especially between Raufarhaven and Vapnafiord, show that 

 the movement of the water is from a southerly direction.* 



(25) p. 10. "Lecidece and other Lichens." 



In northern regions, the absence of plants is compensated 

 for by the covering of Bceomyces roseus, Cenomyce rangiferi- 

 nus, Lecidea muscorum, Lecidea icmadophila, and other cryp- 

 togamia which are spread over the earth, and which may 

 be said to prepare the way for the growth of grasses and other 

 herbaceous plants. In the tropical world, where mosses and 

 lichens are only observed to abound in shady places, some 

 few oily plants supply the place of the lowly lichen. 



(26) p. 11. " The Care of Animals yielding milk. Ruins of 

 the Aztek fortress." 



The two oxen already named, Bos americanus and Bos 

 moschatus, are peculiar to the northern part of the American 

 continent. But the natives 



Queis neque mos, neque cultus erat, nee jungere tauros 



Virg. ^En. i. 316. 



drank the fresh blood, and not the milk, of these animals. 

 Some few exceptions have indeed been met with, but only 

 among tribes who at the same time cultivated maize. -: I have 

 already observed that Gomara speaks of a people in the 

 north-west of Mexico who possessed herds of tame bisons, 

 and derived their clothing, food, and drink from these 

 animals. This drink was probably the blood,f for, as I have 

 frequently remarked, a dislike of milk, or at least the absence 

 of its use, appears before the arrival of Europeans to have 

 been common to all the natives of the New Continent, as well 

 as to the inhabitants of China and Cochin China, notwith- 

 standing their great vicinity to true pastoral tribes. The 

 herds of tame lamas which were found in the highlands of 

 Quito, Peru, and Chili, belonged to a settled and agricultural 



* Sartorius von Waltershausen, Pliysisch-geograpliische STcizze von 

 Island, 1847, s. 2235. 

 f Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, vol. iii. p. 416. 



