59 



these and the other domestic animals of America, would 

 require information of which no one individual is pos- 

 sessed. The weights actually known and stated in the 

 third table preceding will suffice to show, that we may 

 conclude, on probable grounds, that, with equal food and 

 care, the climate of America will preserve the races of 

 domestic animals as large as the European stock from 

 which they are derived ; and consequently that the third 

 member of Mons. de Buffon's assertion, that the domes- 

 tic animals are subject to degeneration from the climate 

 of America, is as probably wrong as the first and sec- 

 ond were certainly so. 



That the last part of it is erroneous, which affirms 

 that the species of American quadrupeds are compara- 

 tively few, is evident from the tables taken together. 

 By these it appears that there are an hundred species 

 aboriginal of America. Mons. de BuffiDn supposes about 

 double that number existing on the whole earth.* Of 

 these Europe, Asia and Africa, furnish suppose 126 ; 

 that is, the 26 common to Europe and America, and 

 about 100 which are not in America at all. The Ameri- 

 can species then are to those of the rest of the earth, as 

 100 to 126, or 4 to 5. But the residue of the earth be- 

 ing double the extent of America, the exact proportion 

 would have been but as 4 to 8. 



Hitherto 1 have considered this hypothesis as applied 

 to brute animals only, and not in its extension to the 

 man of America, whether aboriginal or transplanted. 

 It is the opinion of Mons. de Buffi3n that the former fur- 

 nishes no exception to it.f ' Qiioique le sauvage du 

 nouveau inonde soil a peupres de meme stature que Vliomme 

 de notre inonde, cela ne suffit pas pour quHl puisse /aire 

 une exception aufait general du rapetissement de la nature 

 vivante dans tout ce continent: le sauvage est foible ^ petit 

 par les organes de la generation ; il n^a ni poil, ni harhe^ 

 %f nulle ardeur pour sa femelle. Qiioique plus leger que 

 VEuropien, parce quHl a plus d^habitude a courir, il est 

 cependant beaucoup moins fort de corps ; il est aussi bien 



* XXX. 219. t xviii. 146. 



