78 



ZOOLOGICAL SKETCHES. 



ridges, lateral chains, cross-chains, wide-branching creeks 

 and canons, plateaux, peaks, and wooded heights, stretch- 

 ing away in every direction farther than his eyesight 

 reaches from the top of the highest rock, measureless 

 alpine systems as intricate in their surface-conformation 

 as the convoluted structure of a walnut-kernel, — all 

 represented on the map by a shaded streak half an 

 inch long and hidden among a net-work of similar 

 streaks. 



The incalculable influence of civilization upon the 

 physical geography of cultivated lands makes it difficult 

 to predict the ultimate fate of the wild fauna of a conti- 

 nent like ours; but, judging from present indications, it 

 would seem that the buffalo must perish and that the 

 mountain sheep will survive. The aborigines of the 

 New World were a race of valley-dwellers ; among their 

 conquerors, too, the master-nation, the North Saxons, 

 are lowlanders by preference ; and in one respect North 

 America will therefore probably remain what our ances- 

 tors found it three centuries ago, — a continent of lonely 

 mountain-ranges. 



