BISMUTH BISON. 



489 



pa:iie,d by (he ores of cobalt, of iron, of zinc, and 

 sometimes of silver ; and by quartz, calcareous spar, 

 and barytes, in Bohemia, Transylvania, France, and 

 Sweden. The sulphuret of bismuth has occurred in 

 Cornwall, as well as the oxide. 



Bismuth unites with most metallic bodies, and ren- 

 ders them in general more fusible. When calcined 

 with the imperfect metals, it produces the same effect 

 as lead in cupellation ; combined with the latter body, 

 if produces a fine coloured alloy. 



BISON. The name of one of the subgenera or 

 groups, into which, for the sake of brevity and per- 

 spicuity of description and consistency of geographi- 

 cal distribution, modern naturalists have divided the 

 great genus Bos (the ox), the most useful to man of 

 all the ruminant mammalia. For the general charac- 

 ters of the genus, and the number and distribution of 

 the several groups, we refer to the article Bos ; and 

 for the structural character of the order, which is a 

 very well marked and natural one, to the article 

 RUMINANTIA ; so that we may in this article confine 

 our observations more exclusively to the group of 

 which the name stands as title. 



We may, however, remark that the domestic ox, 

 with whose appearance and uses every one must be 

 familiar, though broken into varieties almost innume- 

 rable by the effects of climate and domestication, 

 possesses nearly the mean or average characters of 

 the whole genus ; and may therefore, in all cases of 

 reference, be considered as the type, by their differ- 

 ences from which all the groups in their several 

 species may be most clearly and briefly described. 



There is not a better general means of distinguish- 

 ing the different groups of animals of the same genus, 

 that is which possess the same general type of organ- 

 isation, in the number, form, and arrangement of those 

 parts of which their bodies are made up, than the 

 shape of the bones of the head and face. Even in 

 the human race, who we are taught to believe are, in 

 all their tribes and varieties, descended from a single 

 pair, we find that the general shape of these bones is 

 one of the best means of distinguishing tribe from 

 tribe; and though attempts have been made to carry 

 this means of judging too far, and to draw conclusions 

 from it which not only it does not warrant and will 

 not bear, but which cannot in the very nature of 

 things be drawn from any structural form or arrange- 

 ment whatever; yet within proper limits this mode 

 of judging is among the best analogical ones which 

 we have. 



Even in the case of man, though as applied to man 

 himself the terms of the analogy have often been re- 

 versed, and the mere frame, which is the passive part 

 of man's compound nature, has been considered the 

 active one, much in the same way as we would allege 

 that the tool employs or uses the hand in working, 

 instead of the hand using the tool ; even in his case, 

 though the form of the head, in the opinion of the 

 writer of this article, cannot possibly throw any more 

 light upon the physiology of the mind, than can be 

 thrown by the form of the limb, or any other part of 

 the structure, yet a knowledge of the effects which 

 arc produced upon the form of the human body by 

 external circumstances is of much u?e to us in 

 studying the general history of animated nature, and 

 especially that very interesting and useful part of it, 

 the adaptation of animals to the several climates over 

 which they are locally distributed. This subject 

 bears so closely upon the group of animals which we 



are about to examine, that a few words on it \viil 

 facilitate instead of retarding our knowledge of that 

 group, at least if this knowledge is to extend any 

 farther than mere names and external appearances, 

 which can hardly be said to deserve the name. 



This is the first instance which has occurred in the 

 alphabetical arrangement of this work of any portion 

 of a genus of mammalia, generally distributed in its 

 different sections over the cold, the intermediate, and 

 the warm latitudes, and which neither hybcrnates nor 

 is capable of migrating, except for short distances 

 within the same country; it is therefore the fir-: 

 opportunity which ue have had of alluding to the 

 adaptation of different sections of the same genus u> 

 very marked differences of climate ; and consequently 

 it is the one in which we can most valuably and pro- 

 fitably introduce some allusion to the general princi- 

 ple of such adaptations ; and we shall find the case of 

 man of no little use for illustration ; and the more so 

 that man is not, in strict propriety, part of the system. 



The general principle stated briefly is this : it 

 agrees with the unity and perfection which, wherever 

 observation has been extended, belongs to the whole 

 system of nature, and follows almost as an immediate 

 consequence of these being there, that the plants and 

 the animals which are found native in any climate or 

 locality, whatever it may be, arc the best adapted to 

 it in all its average circumstances ; and the worse 

 adapted for any other climate or locality, in propor- 

 tion as the circumstances of that locality differ more 

 from those of the native region of the plant or animal. 



But if this mutual adaptation of place and native 

 inhabitant be general, as it certainly is, we are unable 

 to say that either of the two is adapted for the other, 

 because the position admits just as readily of being 

 inverted ; the hill-top, for instance, is adapted to the 

 ptarmigan, and the ptarmigan to the hill-top ; and in 

 all cases, as well as in this one, the natural adaptation 

 is mutual and reciprocal. They are not different 

 things adapted the one to the other, by the act of a 

 third agent, in whose hands they are both passive ; 

 they are self-adapting, and accommodated to each 

 other by that law which their Maker has implanted 

 in them, and in virtue of which they are what they 

 are found to be, and not something different. When 

 the plant or the animal is of such a nature as that it 

 can give way, and in so far accommodate itself to a 

 place originally not quite natural to it, it always ap- 

 proaches to the natural type of that place, if there be 

 any native creature there which has the same general 

 organisation. 



Further, it is found that races which are natives of 

 regions where the natural circumstances are the most 

 variable can most readily accommodate themselves 

 to new places ; a native of the mean latitudes can 

 accommodate itself much better either to the tropical 

 or the polar ones than a native of any of these can 

 accommodate itself to the middle latitudes. The 

 horse, which is supposed to be a native of Central 

 Asia, can live and preserve his spirit in Lapland or 

 Java ; but no art could keep the white bear of Lap- 

 land permanently on our shores, or the ape of Java 

 in our woods. Thus, though circumstances can pro- 

 duce a considerable degree of modification, there is a 

 natural limit which they cannot pass, a natural adap- 

 tation of creature to situation which they cannot bring 

 about, even with all the assistance of art, in attempt- 

 ing to accommodate the place to the creature. 



In all these cases of limit, and the limit is never a 



