THEORY OP THE EAnTH. 91 



perspective, and wishing to represent the out- 

 lines of a straight horned antelope in profile, they 

 could only give the figure one horn, and thus they 

 ^produced an oryx. The oryxes, too, that are seen 

 on the Egyptian monuments, are nothing more, 

 probably, than productions of the stiff style, im- 

 posed on the sculptors of the country by religious 

 prejudices. Several of their profiles of quadru- 

 peds show only one fore and one hinder leg, and 

 it is probable that the same rule led them also to 

 represent only one horn. Perhaps their figures 

 may have been copied after individuals that had 

 lost one of their horns by accident, a circumstance 

 that often happens to the chamois and the saiga, 

 species of the antelope genus, and this would be 

 quite sufficient to establish the error. All the an- 

 cients, however, have not represented the oryx as 

 having only one horn. Oppian expressly attributes 

 two to this animal, and ^Elian mentions one that 

 had four.* Finally, if this animal was ruminant 

 and cloven-footed, we are quite certain that its 

 frontal bone must have been divided longitudinally 

 into two, and that it could not possibly, as it is 

 very justly remarked by Camper, have had a horn 

 placed upon the suture. 



It may be asked, however, What two*horned ani- 

 mals could have given an idea of the ory#, in the 

 forms in which it has been transmitted down to us, 



* JElian, Anim. XV. 14. 



