What, It May Naturally Be Asked, Was The Character
Of The Vegetation At That Period; Was The Country As Wretchedly
Sterile As It Now Is?
As so many of the co-embedded
shells are the same with those now living in the bay, I
Was
at first inclined to think that the former vegetation was
probably similar to the existing one; but this would have
been an erroneous inference for some of these same shells
live on the luxuriant coast of Brazil; and generally, the
character of the inhabitants of the sea are useless as guides
to judge of those on the land. Nevertheless, from the following
considerations, I do not believe that the simple fact
of many gigantic quadrupeds having lived on the plains
round Bahia Blanca, is any sure guide that they formerly
were clothed with a luxuriant vegetation: I have no doubt
that the sterile country a little southward, near the Rio
Negro, with its scattered thorny trees, would support many
and large quadrupeds.
That large animals require a luxuriant vegetation, has
been a general assumption which has passed from one work
to another; but I do not hesitate to say that it is completely
false, and that it has vitiated the reasoning of geologists
on some points of great interest in the ancient history of
the world. The prejudice has probably been derived from
India, and the Indian islands, where troops of elephants,
noble forests, and impenetrable jungles, are associated together
in every one's mind. If, however, we refer to any
work of travels through the southern parts of Africa, we
shall find allusions in almost every page either to the desert
character of the country, or to the numbers of large animals
inhabiting it.
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