HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



105 



" of the clime excelled their own nature. There hav- 

 " ing been fo many animals found in the new world, 

 " which have no likenefs to any of the old world, (hews 

 " fufficiently clear, that the origin of thofe animals 

 " which are proper to the new world ought not to be 

 " afcribed to fimple degeneration. However great and 

 ff powerful we may fuppofe its effects, we cannot rea- 

 " fonably be perfuaded that thefe animals have been ori- 

 " ginally the fame as thofe of the old continent ; and 

 " unqueftionably it is more confident with reafon to be- 

 " lieve, that the two continents were formerly contigu- 

 <c ous and united, and that thofe fpecies which retired 

 " into the regions of the new world, becaufe they found 

 ff its climate and productions more agreeable to their 

 ¥. nature, were there fliut up and feparated from the 

 " others, by the irruptions of the fea which divided A- 

 " frica from America &c. &c. From this dif- 



courfe of count de Buffon we conclude, i. That there 

 is no animal properly American ; becaufe all of them 

 went from the old continent, where they were created. 

 2. That the argument founded on the nature of the ani- 

 mals repugnant to cold, is of no weight to ftiew that the 

 animals could not pafs to the old continent ; becaufe 

 thofe animals which could not pafs by the northern 

 countries from their nature, could pafs by that part 

 Vol. III. P where 



(ff) We requeft our readers to compare what the count de Buffon fays con- 

 cerning the ancient union of Africa and America, with that which he writes in 

 the eighteenth volume, where he fpeaks of the lion. " The American lion," 

 he fays, " cannot be defcended from the lion of the old continent, becaufe the 

 latter only inhabits between the tropics ; and nature having, it appears, fhut 

 up all the paffages by the north, it could not pafs from the fouthern parts of 

 Afia and Africa into America, as thefe two continents are feparated by immenfe 

 feas ; on which account we ought to infer, that the American lion is an animal 

 proper and peculiar to the new world." 



