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"The most obvious and probable cause of this fuperior degree of cold towards the fouthern extremity of America, feems to be the form of the continent there. Its breadth gradually decreafes as it ftretches from St. Antonio fouthwards, and from the bay of St. Julian to the straits of Magellan its dimenfions are much contracted. On the caft and weft fides, it is washed by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. From its fouthern point, it is probable that an open fea ftretches to the antarctic pole. In whichever of thefe directions the wind blows, it is cooled before it approaches the Magellanic regions, by paffing over a vast body of water; nor is the land there of such extent, that it can recover any confiderable degree of heat in its progrefs over it. Thefe circumftances concur in rendering the temperature of the air in this district of America more fimilar to that of an infular, than to that of a continental climate; and hinder it from acquiring the fame degree of fummer-heat with places in Europe and Afia, in a correfponding northern latitude. The north wind is the only one that reaches this part of America, after blowing over a great continent. But, from an attentive furvey of its pofition, this will be found to have a tendency rather to diminish than augment the degree of heat. The fouthern extremity of America is properly the termination of the immenfe ridge of the Andes, which ftretches nearly in a direct line from north to fouth, through the whole extent of the con tinent. The moft fultry regions in South America, Guiana, Brafil, Paraguay, and Tucuman, lie many degrees to the east of the Magellanic regions. The level country of Peru, which enjoys the tropical heats, is fituated confiderably to the weft of them. The north wind, then, though it blows over land, does not bring to the fouthern extremity of America an increase of heat collected in its paffage over torrid regions; but, before it arrives there, it must have fwept along the fummit of the Andes, and come impregnated with the cold of that frozen region."

Another particularity in the climate of America, is its exceffive moifture in general. In fome places, indeed, on the western coaft, rain is not known; but, in all other parts, the moistnefs of the climate is as remarkable as the cold.-The forefts wherewith it is every where covered, no doubt, partly occafion the moisture of its climate; but the moft prevalent caufe is the vaft quantity of water in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, with which America is environed on all fides. Hence thofe places where the continent is narroweft are deluged with almoft perpetual rains, accompanied with violent thunder and lightning, by which fome of them, particularly Porto Bello, are rendered in a manner aninhabitable.

This extreme moisture of the American climate is productive of much larger rivers there than in any other part of the world. The Danube, the Nile, the Indus, or the Ganges, are not comparable to the Miffiffippi, the river St. Laurence, or that of the Amazons; nor are fuch large lakes to be found any where as thofe which North America affords. To the fame caufe we are alfo partly to ascribe the exceffive luxuriance of all kinds of vegetables in almost all parts of this country. In the fouthern provinces, where the moisture of the climate is aided by the warmth of the fun, the woods are almost impervious, and the furface of the ground is hid from the eye, under a thick covering of fhrubs, herbs, and weeds.—In the northern provinces, the forefts are not encumbered with the fame luxuriance of vegetation; nevertheless, they afford trees much larger of their kind than what are to be found any where else.

From the coldnefs and the moifture of America, an extreme malignity of climate has been inferred, and afferted by M. de Paw, in his Recherches Philofophiques. Hence, according to his hypothefis, the fmallnefs and irregularity of the nobler animals, and the fize and enormous multiplication of reptiles and infects.

But the fuppofed fmallness and lefs ferocity of the American animals, the Abbé Clavigero obferves, instead of the malignity, demonftrates the mildness and bounty of the clime, if we give credit to Buffon, at whofe fountain M. de Paw has drank, and of whofe teftimony he has availed himself against Don Pernetty. Buffon, who in many places of his Natural History produces the smallness of the American animals as a certain argument of the malignity of the climate of America, in treating afterwards of favage animals, in Tom. II. fpeaks thus: "As all things, even the most free creatures, are fubject to natural laws, and animals as well as men are fubjected to the influence of climate and foil, it appears that the fame caufes which have civilized and polished the human fpecies in our climates, may have likewife produced fimilar effects upon other fpecies. The wolf, which is perhaps the fierceft of all the quadrupeds of the temperate zone, is however incomparably lefs terrible than the tyger, the lion, and the panther, of the torrid zone; and the white bear and hyena of the frigid zone. In America, where the air and the earth are more mild than those of Africa, the tyger, the lion, and the panther, are not terrible but in the name. They have degenerated, if fiercenefs, joined to cruelty, made their nature; or, to fpeak more properly, they have only fuffered the influence of the climate: under a milder sky, their nature also has become more mild. From climes which are im

moderate in their temperature, are obtained drugs, perfumes, poisɔns,

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and all those plants whofe qualities are ftrong. The temperate earth, on the contrary, produces only things which are temperate; the mildest herbs, the most wholefome pulfe, the sweetest fruits, the most quiet animals, and the most humane men, are the natives of this happy clime. As the earth makes the plants, the earth and plants make animals; the earth, the plants, and the animals, make man. The phyfical qualities of man, and the animals which feed on other animals, depend, though more remotely, on the fame causes which influence their difpofitions and cuftoms. This is the greateft proof and demonstration, that in temperate climes every thing becomes temperate, and that in intemperate climes every thing is exceffive; and that fize and form, which appear fixed and determinate qualities, depend, notwithstanding, like the relative qualities, on the influence of climate. The fize of our quadrupeds cannot be compared with that of an elephant, the rhinoceros, or fea-horse. The largest of our birds are but small, if compared with the oftrich, the condore, and cafoare." So far M. Buffon, whofe text we have copied, because it is contrary to what M. de Paw writes against the climate of America, and to Buffon himself in many other places.

If the large and fierce animals are natives of intemperate climes, and fmall and tranquil animals of temperate climes, as M. Buffon has here eftablished; if mildness of climate influences the difpofition and cuftoms of animals, M. de Paw does not well deduce the malignity of the climate of America from the fmaller fize and lefs fiercenefs of its animals; he ought rather to have deduced the gentleness and sweetness of its climate from this antecedent. If, on the contrary, the fmaller fize and lefs fiercenefs of the American animals, with respect to those of the old continent, are a proof of their degeneracy, arifing from the malignity of the clime, as M. de Paw would have it, we ought in like manner to argue the malignity of the climate of Europe from the smaller fize and lefs fierceness of its animals, compared with those of Africa. If a philofopher of the country of Guinea fhould undertake a work in imitation of M. de Paw, with this title, Recherches Philofophiques fur les Europeens, he might avail himself of the fame argument which M. de Paw uses, to demonstrate the malignity of the climate of Europe, and the advantages of that of Africa. The climate of Europe, he would fay, is very unfavourable to the production of quadrupeds, which are found incomparably fmaller, and more cowardly than ours. What are the horse and the ox, the largest of its animals, compared with our elephants, our rhinocerofes, our feahorfes, and our camels? What are its lizards, either in fize or intrepidity, compared with our crocodiles? Its wolves, its bears, the most dreadful of its wild beafts, when befide our lions or tygers? Its eagle, its

vultures,

vultures, and cranes, if compared with our oftriches, appear only like hens.

As to the enormous fize and prodigious multiplication of the infects and other little noxious animals, "The surface of the earth (fays M. de Paw, infected by putrefaction, was over-run with lizards, ferpents, reptiles, and infects monftrous for fize, and the activity of their poifon, which they drew from the copious juices of this uncultivated foil, that was corrupted and abandoned to itself, where the nutritive juice became sharp, like the milk in the breaft of animals which do not exercise the virtue of propagation. Caterpillars, crabs, butterflies, beetles, fpiders, frogs, and toads, were for the moft part of an enormous corpulence in their fpecies, and multiplied beyond what can be imagined. Panama is infested with serpents, Carthagena with clouds of enormous bats, Portobello with toads, Surinam with kakerlacas, or cucarachas, Guadaloupe, and the other colonies of the iflands, with beetles, Quito with niguas or chegoes, and Lima with lice and bugs. The ancient kings of Mexico, and the emperors of Peru, found no other means of ridding their subjects of those infects which fed upon them, than the impofition of an annual tribute of a certain quantity of lice. Ferdinand Cortes found bags full of them in the palace of Montezuma." But this argument, exaggerated as it is, proves nothing against the climate of America, in general, much lefs against that of Mexico. There being fome lands in America, in which, on account of their heat, humidity, or want of inhabitants, large infects are found, and exceffively multiplied, will prove at moft, that in fome places the surface of the earth is infected, as he says, with putrefaction; but not that the foil of Mexico, or that of all America, iş ftinking, uncultivated, vitiated, and abandoned to itself. If fuch a deduction were juft, M. de Paw might also say, that the foil of the old continent is barren, and stinks; as in many countries of it there are prodigious multitudes of monftrous infects, noxious reptiles, and vile animals, as in the Philippine isles, in many of those of the Indian Archipelago, in feveral countries of the south of Afia, in many of Africa, and even in fome of Europe. The Philippine ifles are infested with enormous ants and monftrous butterflies, Japan with fcorpions, fouth of Afia and Africa with ferpents, Egypt with afps, Guinea and Ethiopia with armies of ants, Holland with field-rats, Ukrania with toads, as M. de Paw himself affirms. In Italy, the Campagna di Roma (although peopled for fo many ages), with vipers; Calabria with tarantulas; the shores of the Adriatic fea, with clouds of gnats; and even in France, the population of which is fo great and so ancient, whofe lands are fo well cultivated, and whofe climate is fo celebrated by the French, there appeared, a few

years

years ago, according to M. Buffon, a new fpecies of field-mice, larger than the common kind, called by him Surmulots, which have multiplied exceedingly, to the great damage of the fields. M. Bazin, in his Compendium of the History of Infects, numbers 77 fpecies of bugs, which are all found in Paris and its neighbourhood. That large capital, as Mr. Bomare fays, fwarms with those disgustful infects. It is true, that there are places in America, where the multitude of infects, and filthy vermin, make life irksome; but we do not know that they have arrived to fuch excefs of multiplication as to depopulate any place, at leaft there cannot be fo many examples produced of this cause of depopulation in the new as in the old continent, which are attefted by Theophraftus, Varro, Pliny, and other authors. The frogs depopulated one place in Gaul, and the locufts another in Africa. One of the Cyclades was depopulated by mice; Amiclas, near to Taracina, by ferpents; another place, near to Ethiopia, by fcorpions and poifonous ants; and another by scolopen dras; and not fo distant from our own times, the Mauritius was going to have been abandoned on account of the extraordinary multiplication or rats, as we can remember to have read in a French author.

With refpect to the fize of the infects, reptiles, and fuch animals, M. de Paw makes ufe of the teftimony of Mr. Dumont, who, in his Memoirs on Louifiana, fays, that the frogs are fo large there that they weigh 37 French pounds, and their horrid croaking imitates the bellow. ing of cows. But M. de Paw himself fays (in his answer to Don Pernetty, cap. 17.) that all those who have written about Louifiana from Henepin, Le Clerc, and Cav. Tonti, to Dumont, have contradicted each other, fometimes on one and fometimes on another subject. In fact, neither in the old or the new continent are there frogs of 37 pounds in weight; but there are in Afia and Africa, ferpents, butterflies, ants, and other animals of fuch monstrous fize, that they exceed all those which have been discovered in the new world. We know very well, that fome American historian fays, that a certain gigantic fpecies of ferpents is to be found in the woods, which attract men with their breath, and swallow them up; but we know also, that several historians, both ancient and modern, report the fame thing of the serpents of Afia, and even fomething more. Magafthenes, cited by Pliny, faid, that there were ferpents found in Afia, fo large, that they fwallowed entire ftags and bulls. Metrodorus cited by the fame author, affirms, that in Afia there were ferpents which, by their breath, attracted birds, however high they were or quick their flight. Among the moderns, Gemelli, in Vol. V. of his Tour of the World, when he treats of the animals of the Philip pine ifles, fpeaks thus: "There are ferpents in these islands of immode

rate

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