336 



TOPOGRAPHY. 



quadruped. South America has never known, nor does it at 

 this time know, either the elephant, the rhinoceros, or any- 

 other animal of equal bulk. All those which have originated 

 in this continent, do not attain the size of a horse. The pere- 

 grinations of the elephants, which BufFon introduces* into the 

 system of the creation and population of the universe, are 

 contrived with great ingenuity, but are devoid of all probabi- 

 lity, and have fallen into universal discredit, more particu- 

 larly since the learned abbe Baruel has demonstrated their ab- 

 surdities and incongruities. One of our associates has drawn 

 up a short dissertation, in which he endeavours to give a cer- 

 tain degree of plausibility to the conje6ture, that the thickness 

 of similar petrifications may be the efFe6l of a repeated supra- 

 position of lapideous substances, assimilated with the bodies 

 which served them as a basis, and which may have acquired 

 their present exuberant growth, by the means of a vegetation 

 similar to that which many naturalists allow to stones. 



Amid the difficulties and incoherences which present them- 

 selves, in the investigation of the origin and quality of these 

 enormous petrifications, it will not appear extraordinary that 

 we should leave the question undecided, while we refuse to 

 adhere to the opinion, so generally received in the age of cre- 

 dulity, that they are the bones of some marine monster, depo- 

 sited in the swampy grounds of Tarija at the time of the uni- 

 versal deluge, and gradually petrified by the means of those 

 lapidific juices which are generally recognized in Nature. 

 To conclude : — the learned will form on this subject the sys- 

 tems which may appear to them to be most susceptible of com- 



* In his Treatise on the Epochs of Nature. 



bination. 



