02 THEORY OF THE EARTH. 4 



even independent of the notion of a single horn ? 

 To this I answer, as already done by Pallas, that it 

 was the straight-horned antelope oryx of Gmelin, 

 improperly named pasan by Buffon. This animal 

 inhabits the deserts of Africa, and must frequently 

 approach the confines of Egypt, and appears to be 

 that which is represented in the hieroglyphics. 

 It equals the ox in height, while the shape of its 

 body approaches to that of a stag, and its straight 

 horns present exceedingly formidable weapons, 

 hard almost as iron, and sharp-pointed like javelins. 

 Its hair is whitish ; it has black spots and streaks 

 on its face, and the hair on its back points forwards. 

 Such is the description given by naturalists ; and 

 the fables of the Egyptian priests, which have oc- 

 casioned the insertion of its figure among their 

 hieroglyphics, do not require to have been found- 

 ed in nature. Supposing that an individual of this 

 species may have been seen which had lost one of 

 its horns by some accident, it may have been taken 

 as a representative of the entire race, and errone- 

 ously adopted by Aristotle to be copied by all his 

 successors. All this is quite possible and even na- 

 tural, and gives not the smallest evidence for the 

 existence of a single-horned species of antelope. 



In regard to the Indian ass, of the alexipharmic 

 virtues of whose horn the ancients speak, we find 

 the eastern nations of the present day attributing 

 exactly the same properties of counteracting poi- 

 son to the horn of the rhinoceros. When this horn 



