Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/81

Rh large as that of Europe. The bones of the mammoth which have been found in America, are as large as thoſe found in the old world. It may be aſked, why I inſert the mammoth, as if it ſtill exiſted? I aſk in return, why I ſhould omit it, as if it did not exiſt? Such is the economy of nature, that no inſtance can be produced, of her having permitted any one race of her animals to become extinct; of her having formed any link in her great work ſo weak as to be broken. To add to this, the traditionary teſtimony of the Indians, that this animal ſtill exiſts in the northern and weſtern parts of America, would be adding the light of a taper to that of the meridian ſun. Thoſe parts ſtill remain in their aboriginal ſtate, unexplored and undiſturbed by us, or by others for us. He may as well exiſt there now, as he did formerly where we find his bones. If he be a carnivorous animal, as ſome anatomiſts have conjectured, and the Indians affirm, his early retirement may be accounted for from the general deſtruction of the wild game by the Indians, which commences in the firſt inſtance of their connexion with us, for the purpoſe of purchaſing matchcoats, hatchets, and fire-locks, with their ſkins. There remain then the buffaloe, red deer, fallow deer, wolf, roe, glutton, wild-cat, monax, viſion, hedgehog, marten, and water rat, of the comparative ſizes of which we have not ſufficient teſtimony. It does not appear that Meſſrs. de Buffon and D'Aubenton have meaſured, weighed, or ſeen thoſe of America. It is ſaid of ſome of them, by ſome travellers, that they are ſmaller than the European. But who were theſe travellers? Have they not been men of a very different deſcription from