HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



149 



SECT. I. 



On the pretended Inundation of America. 



ALMOST all that M. BufFon and M. de Paw have 

 written againft the land of America, refpe&ing its plants, 

 its animals, and its inhabitants, is founded on the fuppo- 

 fition of a general inundation, different from that which 

 happened in the time of Noah, and much more recent, 

 on account of which that vafl country remained a long- 

 time under water. From this recent inundation arifes, 

 fays M. Buffon the malignity of the climate of America, 

 the fterility of its foil, the imperfection of its animals, 

 and the coldnefs of the Americans. Nature had not 

 had time to put her defigns in execution, nor to take all 

 her extenfion. The lakes and the marines left by that 

 inundation, according to the affirmation of M. de Paw, 

 occafion the exceffive humidity of the air which is the 

 caufe of its infalubrity, of the extraordinary multiplica- 

 tion of infects, of the irregularity and fmallnefs of the 

 quadrupeds, of the fterility of the foil, of the barren- 

 nefs of the women, of the abundance of milk in the 

 breads of the men, of the ftupidity of the Americans, 

 and a thoufand other extraordinary phenomena which 

 he has obferved much more dillinctly from his clofet in 

 Berlin, than we who have paffed fo many years in Ame- 

 rica. Thefe two authors, though they are agreed with 

 refpect to an inundation, differ with refpecl: to the time 

 of it ; for M. de Paw believes it to have been much 

 more ancient than M. Buffon does. 



This fuppofition, however, is ill founded, and the in- 

 undation pretended to have happened to the new world 

 is a chimera. M. de Paw endeavours to fupport it on the 



teliimony 



