and all thofe plants whofe qualities are ftrong. The temperate earth, on the contrary, produces only things which are temperate; the mildeft herbs, the most wholefome pulfe, the fweetet fruits, the moft quiet animals, and the moft 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 whieh feed on other animals, depend, though more remotely, on the fame caufes which influence their difpofitions and cuftoms. This is the greatest proof and demonftration, that in temperate climes every thing becomes temperate, and that in intemperate climes every thing is excessive; and that size 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 fmall, 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 smaller fize and lefs fiercenefs of its animals; he ought rather to have deduced the gentlenefs and fweetnefs of its climate from this antecedent. If, on the contrary, the smaller fize and lefs fiercenefs of the American animals, with refpect to thofe 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 smaller, 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 beasts, 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 furface 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 poison, 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 breast of animals which do not exercise the virtue of propagation. Caterpillars, crabs, butterflies, beetles, spiders, frogs, and toads, were for the most part of an enormous corpulence in their fpecies, and multiplied beyond what can be imagined. Panama is infefted with ferpents, Carthagena with clouds of enormous bats, Portobello with toads, Surinam with kakerlacas, or cucarachas, Guadaloupe, and the other colonies of the islands, 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 fubjects of those insects 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 most, that in fome places the furface of the earth is infected, as he says, with putrefaction; but not that the foil of Mexico, or that of all America, is stinking, uncultivated, vitiated, and abandoned to itself. If fuch a deduction were juft, M. de Paw might also fay, that the foil of the old continent is barren, and ftinks; as in many countries of it there are prodigious multitudes of monftrous infects, noxious reptiles, and vile animals, as in the Philippine ifles, in many of thofe of the Indian Archipelago, in feveral countries of the south of Asia, in many of Africa, and even in some of Europe. The Philippine ifles are infefted with enormous ants and monstrous 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 fhores of the Adriatic fea, with clouds of gnats; and even in France, the population of which is fo great and fo 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, 1:rger 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 Hiftory 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 thofe difguftful 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 least there cannot be fo many examples produced of this caufe of depopulation in the new as in the old continent, which are attefted by Theophrastus, Varro, Pliny, and other authors. The frogs depopulated one place in Gaul, and the locusts 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 poisonous ants; and another by fcolopen dras; and not so 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 respect 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 bellowing of cows. But M. de Paw himself fays (in his anfwer 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 fubject. 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 monftrous fize, that they exceed all those which have been difcovered 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 ferpents of Afia, and even fomething more. Magafthenes, cited by Pliny, faid, that there were ferpents found in Afia, so large, that they swallowed entire stags 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 Philippine ifles, fpeaks thus: "There are ferpents in thefe islands of immode

rate

rate fize; there is one called Ibitin, very long, which fufpending itself by the tail from the trunk of a tree, waits till ftags, bears, and alfo men pafs by, in order to attract them with its breadth, and devour them at once entirely:" from whence it is evident, that this very ancient fable has been common to both continents.

Further, it may be asked, In what country of America could M. de Paw find ants to equal thofe of the Philippine islands, called fulum, refpecting which Hernandez affirms, that they were fix fingers broad in length and one in breadth? Who has ever feen in America butterflies fo large as thofe of Bourbon, Ternate, the Philippine ifles, and all the Indian archipelago? The largest bat of America (native to hot fhady countries), which is that called by Buffon vampiro, is, according to him, of the fize of a pigeon. La rougette, one of the fpecies of Afia, is as large as a raven; and the roufette, another fpecies of Afia, is as big as a large hen. Its wings, when extended, measure from tip to tip three Parifian feet, and according to Gemelli, who measured it in the Philippine ifles, fix palms. M. Buffon acknowledges the excefs in fize of the Afiatic bat over the American fpecies, but denies it as to number. Gemelli fays, that thofe of the island of Luzon were so numerous that they darkened the air, and that the noife which they made with their teeth, in eating the fruits of the woods, was heard at-the distance of two miles. M. de Paw fays, in talking of ferpents, "it cannot be affirmed that the New World has shown any ferpents larger than those which Mr. Adanfon faw in the deferts of Africa." The greateft ferpent found in Mexico, after a diligent fearch made by Hernandez, was 1 feet long but this is not to be compared with that of the Moluccas, which Bomare fays is 33 feet in length; nor with the anocanjada of Ceylon, which the fame author fays is more than 33 feet long; nor with others of Afia and Africa, mentioned by the fame author. Laftly, the argument drawn from the multitude and fize of the American infects is fully as weighty as the argument drawn from the fmallnefs and fcarcity of quadrupeds, and both detect the fame ignorance, or rather the fame voluntary and ftudied forgetfulness, of the things of the old continent.

18

With refpect to what M. de Paw has faid of the tribute of lice in Mexico, in that as well as in many other things he discovers his ridiculous credulity. It is true that Cortes found bags of lice in the maga zines of the palace of king Axajacatl. It is alfo true, that Montezuma impofed fuch a tribute, not on all his fubjects, however, but only on those who were beggars; not on account of the extraordinary multitude of thofe infects, as M. de Paw affirms, but because Montezuma, who could

could not fuffer idleness in his subjects, refolved that that miferable fet of people, who could not labour, fhould at leaft be occupied in loufing themselves. This was the true reafon of fuch an extravagant tribute, as Torquemada, Betancourt, and other hiftorians relate; and nobody ever before thought of that which M. de Paw affirms, merely because it faited his prepofterous fyftem. Those disgusting infects poffibly abound as much in the hair and cloaths of American beggars, as of any poor and uncleanly low people in the world: but there is not a doubt, that if any fovereign of Europe was to exact fuch a tribute from the poor in his dominions, not only bags, but great veffels might be filled with them.

ABORIGENES. At the time America was discovered, it was found inhabited by a race of men no lefs different from thofe in the other parts of the world, than the climate and natural productions of this consinent are different from thofe of Europe, Afia, or Africa. One great peculiarity in the native Americans is their colour, and the identity of it throughout the whole extent of the continent. In Europe and Afia, the people who inhabit the northern countries are of a fairer complexion than those who dwell more to the fouthward. In the torrid zone, both in Africa and Afia, the natives are entirely black, or the next thing to it. This, however, muft be understood with fome limitation. The people of Lapland, who inhabit the moft northerly part of Europe, are by no means fo fair as the inhabitants of Britain; nor are the Tartars fo fair as the inhabitants of Europe who lie under the fame parallels of latitude. Nevertheless, a Laplander is fair when compared with an Abyffinian, and a Tartar if compared with a native of the Molucca iflands. In America, this diftinction of colour was not to be found. In the torrid zone there were no negroes, and in the temperate and frigid zones there were no white people. All of them were of a kind of red copper colour, which Mr. Forfter obferved, in the Pefferays of Terra del Fuego, to have fomething of a glofs refembling that metal. It doth not appear, however, that this matter hath ever been inquired into with fufficient accuracy. The inhabitants of the inland parts of South America, where the continent is wideft, and confequently the influence of the fun the moft powerful, have never been compared with shofe of Canada, or more northerly parts, at leaft by any perfon of credit. Yet this ought to have been done, and that in many inftances too, before it could be afferted fo pofitively as moft authors do, that there is not the least difference of complexion among the natives of America. Indeed, fo many fyftems have been formed concerning them, that it is very difficult to obtain a true knowledge of the moft fimple facts. If we may believe the Abbé Raynal, the Californians are

fwarthier