obtained! It could not be otherwise. Sir Jo- 

 seph Banks passed the greatest part of his life 

 in anatomizing the smallest productions of na- 

 ture, such as grubs and butterflies; the province 

 of Walpole was equally confined ; Pennant 

 never left Great Britain; and Mr. Jefferson, 

 though amply qualified by an improved, philo- 

 sophic, and energetic mind, had not met with 

 sufficient evidence to establish irrefragible and 

 certain conclusions. Hence the variety of con- 

 jecture, and error of judgment, which, on this 

 subject, so universally abound. The ruling 

 passions of mankind are excited, and the future 

 current of their lives frequently directed, by 

 trivial circumstances. One of the greatest 

 painters of the age was attracted by an irre- 

 sistible impulse towards his art, by a perusal 

 of a treatise on it ; and Mr. Jefferson's Notes on 

 Virginia, at an early period gave me a turn for 

 natural history, which has never abandoned 

 me, even to this middle period of life. His 

 critical and philosophic remarks on the mam- 

 moth, excited my enthusiasm, but did not 

 satisfy my judgment; and I determined to ex- 

 plore the country where the bones of so stu- 

 pendous an animal were so frequently found. 

 With this intent, I gained the Apelichean ; de- 



