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Jefferson's Notes
Thomas Jefferson started writing what would become his Notes on the State of Virginia in 1781 in response to a list of queries by the French delegation in Philadelphia concerning the American states they were assisting. This work soon evolved into a substantial book that would encompass detailed discourses on a number of topics concerning Virginia and the United States. Jefferson published a limited and private edition in 1785 and a larger, public edition in 1787, but many of his ideas found their way into American discourse well before people had a chance to read his book .
Perhaps the most influential pre-publication element of Jefferson's Notes was his spirited rebuttal to Buffon concerning the Frenchman's theory of American Degeneracy. Buffon's theory, elaborated upon in 1761, stated that the animals of the New World, including the United States lacked the size, vigor and variety of their Old World counterparts. This inferiority, which Buffon attributed primarily to a humid and cold climate, extended to Native Americans, to livestock imported from Europe and -according to some of Buffon's disciples- to transplanted Europeans as well. It's not surprising that Americans took offense.
The centerpiece of Jefferson's rebuttal was a set of lists comparing the size and variety of American and European animals. Significantly, the animal at the top of Jefferson's list was the mastodon, then known variously as the "Mammoth", "American incognitum" and "animal de l'Ohio". Although he acknowledged that this animal might be extinct, Jefferson suspected that it still roamed the vast wilderness of North America. Whether living or not, it was clear to Jefferson and his contemporaries that this giant was "the largest of all terrestrial beings". Consequently, Jefferson regarded the "Mammoth" as perhaps one of the most compelling arguments against Buffon's theory of American Degeneracy:
"But to whatever animal we ascribe these remains, it is certain such a one has existed in America, and that it has been the largest of all terrestrial beings. It should have sufficed to have rescued the earth it inhabited, and the atmosphere it breathed, from the imputation of impotence in the conception and nourishment of animal life on a large scale: to have stifled, in its birth, the opinion of a writer [Buffon], the most learned too of all others in the science of animal history, that in the new world, that nature is less active, less energetic on one side of the globe than she is on the other."
Jefferson also disputed Buffon's and Daubenton's contention that the fossils recovered from Big Bone Lick belonged to the elephant and a giant hippopotamus. Rather, he agreed with Collinson and Hunter that the fossils represented a single animal similar to, but distinct from the elephant. Like the British naturalists, Jefferson was struck by the exclusive occurrence of this animal and the Siberian mammoth in the northern latitudes, and he also suspected that the Siberian mammoth and the American "Mammoth" were the same species. In contrast, the elephant was found only in the tropics. To Jefferson, this giant of the North discredited Buffon's contention that cold climates led to degeneracy.
Jefferson believed that the "Mammoth" was probably a carnivore. This opinion, introduced by William Hunter in 1766 and shared by many of Jefferson's contemporaries, was based in part on the jagged biting surfaces of the animal's molars. It was also influenced by reports of the shattered bones of presumed prey at Big Bone Lick and by Native American legends popularized by Jefferson in his book. The image of a giant hunter rampaging through the wilderness fueled the imagination of many Americans offended by the Theory of Degeneracy and envious of Europe's cultural legacy. Europeans could point to the ruins of Classical Greece and Rome. America lacked Europe's antiquities, but the citizens of the new nation could boast of their natural wonders and the massive bones and teeth of the "Mammoth".
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