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. With these facts we must grant, as
far as _quantity alone_ of vegetation is concerned, that the
great quadrupeds of the later tertiary epochs might, in most
parts of Northern Europe and Asia, have lived on the spots
where their remains are now found. I do not here speak of
the kind of vegetation necessary for their support; because,
as there is evidence of physical changes, and as the animals
have become extinct, so may we suppose that the species of
plants have likewise been changed.
These remarks, I may be permitted to add, directly bear
on the case of the Siberian animals preserved in ice. The
firm conviction of the necessity of a vegetation possessing
a character of tropical luxuriance, to support such large
animals, and the impossibility of reconciling this with the
proximity of perpetual congelation, was one chief cause of
the several theories of sudden revolutions of climate, and of
overwhelming catastrophes, which were invented to account
for their entombment. I am far from supposing that the
climate has not changed since the period when those animals
lived, which now lie buried in the ice. At present I
only wish to show, that as far as _quantity_ of food _alone_ is
concerned, the ancient rhinoceroses might have roamed over
the _steppes_ of central Siberia (the northern parts probably
being under water) even in their present condition, as well
as the living rhinoceroses and elephants over the _Karros_
of Southern Africa.
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