DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. 51 



vast island of Plato did really happen, it surely 

 would affect the whole terraqueous globe, pro- 

 duce convulsions far and wide, and cause various 

 disruptions in its crust, and elevations in other 

 parts from the bed of the ocean. It throws 

 some weight into this scale, that thus a way 

 would be open, though certainly a circuitous one, 

 for the migration of those animals to America, 

 that are found in no other part of the world, and, 

 supposing Asia to have been disrupted from it at 

 Behrings Straits, could scarcely have ascended 

 to so high a latitude, in search of their destined 

 home. 



Malte-brun, in his geography, after proving 

 that the animals in question could have passed 

 neither from Africa nor Asia, observes ' ' Nothing, 

 therefore, remains, but the accommodating re- 

 source of a tremendous convulsion of nature, with 

 a vast tract of country swallowed up by the 

 waves, which formerly united America with the 

 temperate regions of the old world. Such con- 

 jectures as these, however, being devoid of all 

 historical support, do not merit a moment's con- 

 sideration ; consequently we cannot refrain from 

 admitting, that the animals of America originated 

 on the very soil, which, to this present day, they 

 still inhabit." 



That it might have been the will of the Creator 

 to people the country in question by the imme- 

 diate production of a new race of animals, suited 



