HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



117 



neither were they tranfported by men, we may fafely 

 fay ; as little can we think, by fwimming two thonfand 

 miles through the fait waters of the Ocean. 



There remains no other folution, but that of ad- 

 mitting an ancient union between the equinoctial coun- 

 tries of America and thofe of Africa, and the con- 

 tinuation of the northern countries of America with 

 thofe of Europe or Afia; the latter for the palfage of 

 beafts of cold climes, the former for the palfage of 

 quadrupeds and reptiles peculiar to hot climes. For 

 the reafons we have already fubmitted, we are per- 

 fuaded, that there was formerly a great tracl: of land 

 which united the now moft eaftern part of Brazil to the 

 moft weftern part of Africa; and that all that fpace of 

 land may have been funk by fome violent earthquakes, 

 leaving only fome traces of it in the ifles of Cape de 

 Verd, Fernando de Norona, Afcenfion, St. Matthew, 

 and others ; and many fand-banks difcovered by differ- 

 ent navigators, and in particular by de Bauche, who 

 founded that fea with great care and exaclnefs (k). 

 Thofe iflands and fand-banks may probably have been 

 the higheft parts of that funken continent. In like man- 

 ner we believe that the moft wefterly part of America 

 was formerly united by means of a fmaller continent to 

 the moft eafterly part of Tartary, and perhaps America 

 was united alfo by Greenland with other northern coun- 

 tries of Europe. 



Upon the whole, from all we have faid, we cannot 

 but believe that the quadrupeds and the reptiles of the 

 new world paffed there by land, and by different parts, 



to 



(I) M. de Bauche, in the year 1737, prefented to the Royal Academy of 

 Sciences of Paris the hydrographical charts of that fea, made according to his 

 obfervation, which were examined and approved of by the Academy. The 

 celebrated author of the American Letters has inferted a draft of thofe charts 

 in the fecond volume of his work. 



