102 



BAHIA BL.ANCA. 



Aug. 1833. 



other side;, two tapirs^ the guanacO;, three deer^ the vicuna, 

 peccari, capybara (after which we must choose from the 

 monkeys to complete the number), and then place these two 

 groups alongside each other, it is not easy to conceive 

 ranks more disproportionate. After the above facts, we are 

 compelled to conclude, against anterior probability,* that 

 among the mammalia there exists no close relation between 

 the bulk of the species, and the quantity of the vegetation, 

 in the countries they inhabit. 



With regard to the number of large quadrupeds, there 

 certainly exists no quarter of the globe which will bear com- 

 parison with Southern Africa. After the different statements 

 which have been given, the extremely desert character of that 

 region will not be disputed. In the European division of the 

 world, we must look back to the tertiary epochs, to find a 

 condition of things among the mammalia resembling that 

 which is now found at the Cape of Good Hope. That 

 tertiary epoch, which we are apt to consider as abounding to 

 an astonishing degree with large animals, because we find the 

 remains of many ages accumulated at certain spots, could 

 boast of but few more of the large quadrupeds, than Southern 

 Africa does at present. If we speculate on the condition of 

 the vegetation during that epoch, we are at least bound so far 

 to consider existing analogies, as not to urge as absolutely 

 necessary a luxuriant vegetation, when we see a state of 

 things so totally different in the region to which we refer. 



We knowt that the extreme regions of North America, 



* If we suppose the case of the discovery of a skeleton of a Greenland 

 whale in a fossil state, not a single cetaceous animal being known to exist, 

 what naturalist would even conjecture on the possibility of a carcass 

 so gigantic, being supported on the minute Crustacea and mollusca, 

 living in the frozen seas of the extreme North ? 



f See Zoological Remarks to Capt. Back's Expedition, by Dr. Richard- 

 son. He says, " The subsoil north of latitude 36° is perpetually frozen, 

 the thaw on the coast not penetrating above three feet, and at Bear Lake, 

 in latitude 64°, not more than twenty inches. The frozen substratum 

 does not of itself destroy vegetation, for forests flourish on the surface, at 

 a distance from the coast." 



