4 ON THE GEOGRAPHY OP 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 

 wlio 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 Linnaeus 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 ]\Iosaic narrative con- 

 tradicted by innumerable and undeniable facts. If all 

 the tribes of terrestrial animals, 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. 



