THEORY OF THE EARTH. 77 



dependent of the notion of a single horn ? To this 

 I reply, with Pallas, that it was the straight 

 horned antelope, the Antilope oryx of Gmelin, 

 improperly named pasan by Buffon. It inhabits 

 the deserts of Africa, and must approach the con- 

 fines of Egypt. It is this animal which the hie- 

 roglyphics appear to represent. Its form is near- 

 ly that of the stag ; its size equals that of the 

 bull ; the hair of its back is directed toward the 

 head ; its horns form exceedingly formidable wea- 

 pons, pointed like javelins, and hard as iron ; its 

 hair is whitish, and its face is marked with spots 

 and streaks of black. Such is the description gi- 

 ven of it by naturalists ; and the fables of the 

 Egyptian priests, which have occasioned the in- 

 sertion of its figure among their hieroglyphics, do 

 not require to have been founded in nature. Sup- 

 posing, therefore, that an individual of this spe- 

 cies had been seen which had lost one of its horns 

 by some accident, it might have been taken as a 

 representative of the whole race, and erroneously 

 adopted by Aristotle, and copied by his successors. 

 All this is possible, and even natural, and yet 

 proves nothing with regard to the existence of a 

 single-horned species. 



In regard to the Indian ass, if we attend to the 

 properties ascribed to its horns as an antidote a- 

 gainst poison, we shall see that they are precisely 

 the same as those which the eastern nations attri- 



