BOOK of the freezing winds, they enjoy a temperature analogous LXXV. to their latitude. Mineralo The productions of America offer some peculiarities. gical riches. The most indisputable of these, is its abounding so remarkably with gold and silver, which are met with even on the surface of the soil, but principally in veins of the schistose rocks, which compose the Cordilleras of Chili, of Peru, and of Mexico. Gold is met with in the greatest quantity in the former of these regions, and silver in the latter. To the north of the mountains of New Mexico, the plains, meadows, and little clusters of rocks, frequently contain vast beds of copper. Before we inquire how it happens that the New Continent is distinguished for such immense mineral riches, it would no doubt be well to enquire whether or not the interior of Africa conceals similar metalliferous regions; nay, whether even that of Asia did not formerly contain what, in the present day, is exhausted? Taking for granted that America is decidedly superior in this point of view, it must, nevertheless, be avowed, that the situation of its minerals, the position of its mines, and the other circumstances of its physical geography, have not hitherto been described with so much care, as to enable us to indicate the cause of this superiority. Animal kingdom. In America, as in all other regions of the world, the animal tribes appear to bear a proportion, both in their number and their size, to the extent of the country which has given them birth. The musk ox, the bison of North America, and the Magellanic ostrich of South America, equal in size their corresponding species of the old world; the elk or stag of New California even attains a gigantic magnitude; but all the other quadrupeds, such as the lama, the guanaco, the jaguar, and the anti, yield in size as well as strength to the same description of animals in Asia and Africa. This fact, however, is by no means exclusively confined to the New Continent. The animals of New Holland with which we are acquainted, are again smaller than those of America; and the same decrease of animal life might no doubt be remarked between New BOOK Holland and Madagascar, if the present state of our know LXXV. ledge enabled us to draw such a parallel. Vegetable life, which depends on moisture, shows, on Vegetable producthe contrary, over the greater part of America, a singular tions. degree of vigour. The pines that shade the Columbia, whose tops rise perpendicularly to a height of three hundred feet, deserve to be considered as the giants of the vegetable world. Next to these might be named the plantain and tulip trees of the Ohio, having a circumference of from forty to fifty feet. The low parts of the country, both in America, are covered with extensive forests; and yet, nevertheless, the barrenness of one part of the region of the Missouri, of the plateaus of New Mexico, of the Llanos, of the Caraccas, of the Campos Paraxis, and of the Pampas; or, in other words, of fully one quarter of this continent, ought to deter us, in respect to its vegetation, from employing all those exaggerated expressions which are servilely copied from one description to another. South and North The absolute difference that exists between a great num- Peculiarity ber of the animals and vegetables of America, and those of regarding the old world, constitutes a fact of a more positive nature, mals. With the exception of the bear, the fox, and the rein-deer, which endure with impunity the rigours of the frigid zone; except the seal and the whale tribes, inhabitants of all the shores, and of the Didelphis,* probably introduced into Peru by a colony from the islands of the Great Ocean-all the animals of both Americas appear to form particular species, or, at least, distinct races. Even the American rein-deer, or the caribou, has never been seen in Siberia. The original is a variety of our stag; but the latter never passes the southern latitudes of Siberia. The same remark is applicable to the great wild sheep, said to be met with in the interior of California. The bison, and the musk ox, which pasture from the lakes of Canada to the seas of Opossum tribe. BOOK California; the cougouar and jaguar, whose roars resound LXXV. in distant echoes, from the entrance of the Rio del Norte its animals. to the farther bank of the Amazon; the anti, or tapir, conveying a faint sketch of the elephant; the pecari, and the patira, bearing a resemblance to the wild boar; the cabiai, agouti, paca, and other species analogous to the hare; the ant-eaters, tamanduas, tamanoirs, all devourers of insects; the indolent and feeble sloth; the useful lama, with the vigogne; the light sapajou; the noisy parrot, and the gaudy serpent, all differ essentially from those very animals of the old continent to which they make Origin of the closest approach. All the animals thus peculiar to America, form, like those of New Holland, a distinct family, and evidently are aboriginal in the country which they inhabit. Would any one, in fact, attempt to affirm, that the cougouar and jaguar have swum across thither from Africa? or, can it be supposed that the touyou,* borne on its feeble wings, could have traversed the Atlantic Ocean? Certainly no one will maintain that the animals of Peru and Mexico could have passed from Asia into America; since none of them can live in the frigid zone, which they must, first of all, have necessarily crossed. It is equally impossible to suppose, that all the animals existing on the globe, are derived from America; and, consequently, those who would place the terrestrial paradise on the banks of either the Amazon or La Plata, would make just as little progress in this investigation as they who assign it a situation on the Euphrates. Nothing, therefore, remains, but the accommodating resource of a tremendous convulsion of nature, with a vast tract of country swallowed up by the waves, which formerly united America with the temperate regions of the old world. Such conjectures as these, however, being devoid of all historical support, do not merit a moment's consideration. Consequently, we cannot refrain from admitting, that the animals of Ame * Brazilian ostrich. rica originated on the very soil, which, to this present day, BOOK they still inhabit.* LXXV This origin once admitted, we must direct our attention Analogie to a circumstance which is common to both continents. and diffe Those species which, in America, represent the lion and ences. tiger, inhabit the torrid zone, and seem to derive from the heat of a burning climate the ferocity with which they are animated. In the same country, the form of the anti or tapir, slightly recalls to our recollection that of the elephant; thus the prolongation of the cartilages appears to belong to the torrid zone. The birds with imperfect wings and irregular plumage; the ostrich of Africa, and the cassowary of New-Holland, seem to claim a natural kindred with the touyou of South America. The large insects, the enormous reptiles, and the birds with splendid and variously coloured feathers, people the warmer regions of either continent. The climate of their temperate regions seems to have produced the same effects on the lower animals. The two varieties of the ox that inhabit the plateaus of California and the savannahs of the Missouri, have neither the habits nor the characteristic features of the ferocious buffalo of Caffraria. The wild sheep, and the lama-that intermediate animal between the sheep and the camel-like their prototypes on the old continent, delight in the pastures of the desert. In the two worlds, there is a resemblance in every thing, but nothing is identically the same. animals These reflections lead us to a very difficult question. Fossil The race of animals of which there no longer exist any individuals in the present day, and with which we are acquainted only by means of the fossil bones that are discovered in the earth, belong, in general, to an order of things very different from the actual condition of the globe, and anterior to the existence of man. May there not, however, be an exception in favour of the fossil elephant of the Ohio, Mylius, de Origine Animalium, et Migratione Gentium, p. 56. Geneva, 1667. Buffon, etc. etc. BOOK and of the megatherium of Paraguay? Buried in mobile LXXV. and superficial strata, the remains of these animals may hysical haracters f the atives. have belonged to a race which became extinct at a comparätively modern epoch. An exact description of the situation in which these fossil remains have been found can alone decide the question. After having admitted an animal creation peculiar to America as well as to New-Holland, ought we likewise to conclude, that the Americans are a distinct race of people? We are not, it is true, obliged to discuss this subject, as it is not within the bounds of positive history; for no history ascends to so remote a period. We ought, nevertheless, to admit, as an established fact, that the Americans, whatever their origin may be, constitute, in the present day, by their physical characters, not less than by their peculiar idiom, a race essentially different from the rest of mankind. The truth of this proposition has been demonstrated by a long series of physiological observations. The natives of this part of the world are, in general, of a large size, of a robust frame, and a well proportioned figure, free from defects of organization. Their complexion is of a bronze, or reddish copper hue-rusty-coloured as it were, and not unlike cinnamon or tannin. Their hair is black, long, coarse, and shining, but not thickly set on the bead. Their beard is thin, and grows in tufts. Their forehead is low, and their eyes are lengthened out, with the outer angles turned up towards the temples; the eyebrows high, the cheek-bones prominent; the nose a little flattened, but well marked; the lips extended, and their teeth closely set and pointed. In their mouth, there is an expression of sweetness which forms a striking contrast with the gloomy, harsh, and even stern character of their countenance. Their head is of a square shape, and their face is broad, without being flat, and tapers towards the chin. Their features, viewed in profile, are prominent, and deeply sculptured. They have a high chest, massy thighs, Blumenbach, de Varietate, p. 257. |