THEORY OF THE EARTH. 7? 



fied that there does not remain any large land to 

 be discovered, unless it may be situated towards 

 the antartic pole, where eternal ice necessarily for- 

 bids the existence of animal life. 



i 



'&\. " 



Hence it is only from the interiors of the large 

 divisions of the world already known, that we can 

 now hope to procure any quadrupeds hitherto un- 

 known. But a very little reflection will be sufficient 

 to convince us, that our hopes from thence are not 

 much better founded than from the larger islands. 



Doubtless, European travellers cannot easily 

 penetrate througli vast extents of countries which 

 are either uninhabited, or peopled only with fero- 

 cious tribes ; and this is peculiarly the case in re- 

 gard to Africa. But there is nothing to prevent 

 the animals themselves from roaming in all direc- 

 tions, and penetrating to the coasts. Even al- 

 though great chains of mountains may intervene 

 between the coasts and the interior deserts, these 

 must certainly be broken in some parts, to allow 

 the rivers to pass through ; and in these burning 

 deserts the animals naturally follow the courses of 

 rivers. The inhabitants of the coasts must also 

 frequently penetrate inland along the rivers, and 

 will quickly acquire a knowledge of all the re- 

 markable living creatures, even to the very sources 

 of these rivers, either from personal observation, 

 or by intercourse with the inhabitants of the inte- 

 rior. At no period of our history, therefore, could 



