Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1853).djvu/288

272 the maize maiz, a word derived from the language of Hayti, which was spoken in the island now called Hispaniola, or St. Domingo.”—1. Clavigero, 56. “Maize, a grain granted by Providence to that portion of the globe, instead of the wheat of Europe, the rice of Asia, and the millet of Africa.”—2. Clavig., 218. Acosta classes Indian corn with the plants peculiar to America, observing that it is called “Trigo de las Indias” (Indian wheat) in Spain, and “Grano de Turquia” (Turkey grain) in Italy. He says, “From hence came Indian corn, and why they call this most productive grain in Italian, Turkey grain, is more easily asked than answered. Because, in fact, there is no trace of such a plant in the old world, although the millet, which Pliny says came ten years before he wrote from India to Italy, has some resemblance to maize, inasmuch as he calls it a grain, which grows in stalks, and is covered with leaves, which has at the top a kind of hair, and is remarkably productive—all of which does not apply to mijo, by which they commonly mean millet. After all, the Creator rules all parts of the globe: to one he gave wheat, the principal food of man; to the Indias he gave maize, which holds the second place, next to wheat, as a food for man and beast.”—Acosta, iv., 16.

Clavigero says: “I do not remember that any American nation has any tradition of elephants, or hippopotami, or other quadrupeds of equal size. I do not know that any of the numerous excavations made in New Spain has brought to light the carcass of a hippopotamus, or even the tooth of an elephant.”—125.

2. Epoques, 232. Buffon pronounces it is not the grinder either of the elephant or hippopotamus, but of a species, “the first and the greatest of all land animals now lost.”

“The earth has (since) remained cold, unable to produce the principles necessary for the development of the germs of the largest quadrupeds, which require for their growth and propagation all the heat and activity which the sun can give to the loving earth.”—Xviii. 156. “The temper of men and the size of animals depend upon the salubrity and the heat of the air.”—Ib. 160.