84                  ORIGIN OF THE

from any other nation in that border of Asia, after the near
vicinity of Asia to America, this reason, above all others,
may best establish and persuade ; because it is certain, that
that north-east part of Asia possessed by the Tartars, is, if
not continent with the west side of America, which yet
remaineth somewhat doubtful, certainly, and without all
doubt, the least disjoined by sea, of all that coast of
Asia, for that those parts of Asis and America, are conti-
nent the one with the other, or at most, disjoined but by
some narrow channel of the ocean, the ravenous and harmful
beasts, wherewith America is stored, as Bears, Lions, Ti-
gers, Wolves, Foxes, &c. (which, then, as is likely, men
would never to their own harm transport out of the one con-
tinent to the other) may import. For from Noah's ark,
which rested after the deluge, in Asia, all those beasts must
of necessity fetch their beginning, seeing they would not
proceed by the course of nature, as the imperfect sort of
living creatures do, of putrefaction; or if they might have
putrefaction for their parentage, or receive their original by
any other sort of generation) of the earth, without a special
procreation of their own kind, then I see no necessity, why
they should by God's special appointment, be so carefully
preserved in Noah's ark (as they were) in time of the de-
luge. Wherefore, seeing it is certain, that those ravenous
beasts of America, are the progeny of those of the same
kind in Asia, and that men, as is likely, conveyed them not
(to their own prejudice) from the one continent to the
other, it carrieth a great likelyhood and appearance of truth,
that if they join not together, yet are they near neighbours,
and but little disjoined the one from the other, for even to this
day, in the isles of Cuba, Jamaica, Thspaniola, Burichena,
and all the rest, which are so far removed from the firm
land, that these beasts cannot swim from it to them, the
Spaniards record, that none of these are found.'*
  The portrait painter, Mr. Smibert, who accompanied Dr.
Berkeley, then Dean of Derry, and afterwards Bishop of


            *Brerewood's enquiries, p. 117. 118.