Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/70

60 the 30th degree of ſouth latitude to the 30 of north, are nearly the limits which nature has fixed for the exiſtence and multiplication of the elephant known to us. Proceeding thence northwardly to 36 30 degrees, we enter thoſe aſſigned to the mammoth. The further we advance north, the more their veſtiges multiply as far as the earth has been explored in that direction: and it is as probable as otherwiſe, that this progreſſion continues to the pole itſelf, if land extends ſo far. The centre of the frozen zone then may be the achmé of their vigor, as that of the torrid is of the elephant. Thus nature ſeems to have drawn a belt of ſeparation between theſe two tremendous animals, whoſe breadth indeed is not preciſely known, though at preſent we may ſuppoſe it about 6 and half degrees of latitude; to have aſſigned to the elephant the regions ſouth of theſe confines, and thoſe north to the mammoth, founding the conſtitution of the one in her extreme of heat, and that of the other in the extreme of cold. When the Creator has therefore ſeparated their nature as far as the extent of the ſcale of animal life allowed to this planet would permit, it ſeems perverſe to declare it the ſame, from a partial reſemblance of their tuſks and bones. But to whatever animal we aſcribe theſe remains, it is certain ſuch a one has exiſted in America, and that it has been the largeſt of all terreſtrial beings. It ſhould have ſufficed to have reſcued the earth it inhabited, and the atmoſphere it breathed, from the imputation of impotence in the conception and nouriſhment of animal life on a large ſcale; to have ſtifled, in its birth, the opinion of a writer, the moſt learned too of all others in the ſcience of animal hiſtory, that