Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/69

That an eternal fire may once have warmed thoſe regions, and ſince abandoned them, of which, however, the globe exhibits no unequivocal indications; or, 3. That the obliquity of the ecliptic, when theſe elephants lived, was ſo great as to include within the tropics all thoſe regions in which the bones are found: the tropics being, as is before obſerved, the natural limits of habitation for the elephant. But if it be admitted that this obliquity has really decreaſed, and we adopt the higheſt rate of decreaſe yet pretended, that is of one minute in a century, to transfer the northern tropic to the Arctic circle, would carry the the exiſtence of theſe ſuppoſed elephants, 250,000 years back; a period far beyond our conception of the duration of animal bones left expoſed to the open air, as theſe are in many inſtances. Beſides, though theſe regions would then be ſuppoſed within the tropics, yet their winters would have been too ſevere for the ſenſibility of the elephant. They would have had too but one day and one night in the year, a circumſtance to which we have no reaſon to ſuppoſe the nature of the elephant fitted. However, it has been demonſtrated, that, if a variation of obliquity in the ecliptic takes place at all, it is vibratory, and never exceeds the limits of 9 degrees, which is not ſufficient to bring theſe bones within the tropics.—One of theſe hypotheſiſes, or ſome other equally voluntary and inadmiſſible to cautious philoſopſophy, muſt be adopted to ſupport the opinion that theſe are the bones of the elephant. For my own part, I find it eaſier to believe that an animal may have exiſted, reſembling the elephant in his tuſks, and general anatomy, while his nature was in other reſpects extremely different. From