^ THEORY OF THE EARTH. 



quadrupeds, and their neglect in distinguishing the- 

 species which very nearly resemble each other, as 

 the various species of antelopes and of some other 

 genera, was occasioned by want of attention and 

 ignorance of methodical arrangement, and not by 

 any difficulties proceeding from the climates or dis- 

 tance of the places which these animals inhabited. 

 We may also conclude with equal certainty, that as 

 eighteen or twenty centuries at the least, with the 

 advantages of circumnavigating Africa, and of pe- 

 netrating into all the most distant regions of India, 

 have added nothing in this portion of natural histo- 

 ry to the information left us by the ancients, it is not 

 at all probable that succeeding ages will add much 

 to the knowledge of our posterity. 



'HK. -..>. #*-, -' vet-- V 1 * # * 



Perhaps some persons may be disposed to em- 

 ploy an opposite train of argument, and to allege 

 that the ancients were not only acquainted with 

 as many large quadrupeds as we are, as has been 

 already shown, but that they actually described 

 several others which we do not now know ; that 

 we are rash in considering the accounts of all such 

 animals as fabulous; that we ought to search for 

 them with the utmost care, before concluding that 

 we have acquired a complete knowledge of the ex- 

 isting animal creation; and, in fine, that among 

 these animals which we presume to be fabulous, 

 we may perhaps discover, when better acquaint- 

 ed with them> the actual originals of the bones of 

 those species which are now unknown. Perhaps 



