After The Above Facts, We Are Compelled
To Conclude, Against Anterior Probability, [8] That Among
The Mammalia There Exists No Close Relation Between The
Bulk Of The Species, And The _Quantity_ Of The Vegetation, In
The Countries Which They Inhabit.
With regard to the number of large quadrupeds, there
certainly exists no quarter of the globe which will bear
comparison 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 now existing at the Cape of Good Hope. Those
tertiary epochs, 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 hardly boast of more large quadrupeds than Southern
Africa does at present. If we speculate on the condition
of the vegetation during these epochs 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 at the Cape of Good
Hope.
We know [9] that the extreme regions of North America,
many degrees beyond the limit where the ground at the depth
of a few feet remains perpetually congealed, are covered by
forests of large and tall trees. In a like manner, in Siberia,
we have woods of birch, fir, aspen, and larch, growing in a
latitude [10] (64 degs.) where the mean temperature of the
air falls below the freezing point, and where the earth is so
completely frozen, that the carcass of an animal embedded in it
is perfectly preserved.
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