A ON THE GEOGRAPHY OF ANIMALS. 
have been appointed for domestication ; while food and 
temperature will have their accidental or local effects: 
but these causes, when viewed in reference to the 
great harmonies of the animal world, sink into insig- 
nificance ; and can never, for a moment, be justly 
made to interpret the causes of animal distribution. 
Within the limits of the range of every animal there 
are, like islands in the ocean, spots which are not con- 
genial to its nature; and here the secondary causes, 
just alluded to, come into play: but we should no more 
think of making these spots so many characteristics of 
geographic zoology, than we should say that the sun 
was not a luminous body, because its entire surface is 
not equally bright. 
(4.) That we may not, however, upon so important 
a question, appear to undervalue the opinions of those 
who have already given to the world the results of their 
investigations, we shall, in the first place, lay before the 
reader a condensed statement of what has been published 
upon the subject, and then notice the different theories 
that have arisen on animal geography. 
(5.) It was the opinion of Linneus that all races of 
animals, no less than of plants, originated in one com- 
mon central spot; from which they were gradually 
dispersed over those portions of the earth which they now 
inhabit. This opinion appears to receive full confirm- 
ation from the sacred writings; and, in reference to 
the general interpretation of the deluge, it would appear 
presumptuous to controvert this belief, were not the 
inference here deduced from the Mosaic narrative con- 
tradicted by innumerable and undeniable facts. If all 
the tribes of terrestrial animaJs, now in existence, de- 
scended from a stock preserved in the ark, and subse- 
quently liberated, in what way can we account for the 
remote and partial locations of innumerable families, 
cut off by deserts and oceans from those regions in 
which all the events of Scripture history took place ? 
Contradictory, therefore, as these facts, at first sight, 
may appear to be to the Mosaic account of the deluge, 
