ORDER RUMINANTIA. 375 



descends as far south and west, as the Province of Guivira 

 according to Lopez Gomara, where the Spaniards found 

 sheep as large as a horse, with long hair, short tails, and 

 enormous horns *. Messrs, Hearne, Dobbs, and Graham, 

 have supplied the fullest information relative to this ani- 

 mal, which was first described by Mr. Pennant, though 

 noticed long before by Mr. Jeremie, a French officer, who 

 was stationed in Canada during the succession war. 



The Fossil Musk-Ox. (0. Pallantis.) Mr. Pallas first 

 published an account of heads found on the banks of the 

 Obi, and near Tundra, north of the Arctic circle. One was 

 without the horns, but shewed their base to have extended 

 over the forehead, from the orbits to the occipital crest ; 

 another found between the Lena and Indigirska, figured by 

 M. Ozeretkofsky, represents them descending against the 

 temples, behind the orbits, but with such a particular 

 twist, that Baron Cuvier comparing some minor distinc- 

 tions in the osteological structure of these skulls with those 

 of the American species, appears in doubt whether they be 

 not of a separate species. Though fossil, they have all the 

 characters of recent existence, and the Baron admits with 

 Pallas, the possibility of their reaching Asia, by being con- 

 veyed on the field ice. Comparing Captain Parry's figure 

 of the Musk-Ox, with the head represented by M. Ozeret- 

 kofsky, the flexures and compression of the horns against 

 the parietals are very similar, but there is, we believe, a 

 difficulty not noticed by the learned Zoologists above men- 

 tioned, which is, that if the ice had conveyed the heads in 

 question from America to Asia, that ice could scarcely have 

 ascended the rivers ; on the contrary, the river ice must have 

 carried them out to sea : the Bears alone could have conveyed 

 them on shore, but in that case, the remains of carcasses 

 would have been near. We believe all accounts agree in as- 

 serting that the currents, along the shores of North and Polar 



* See Purchas's Pilgrims, book viii. chap. 5. 



