萬物簡史 第95期:勢不兩立的科學(xué)(3)

Not surprisingly, such aspersions were indignantlymet in America. Thomas Jefferson incorporated afurious (and, unless the context is understood, quitebewildering) rebuttal in his Notes on the State ofVirginia, and induced his New Hampshire friendGeneral John Sullivan to send twenty soldiers intothe northern woods to find a bull moose to present toBuffon as proof of the stature and majesty ofAmerican quadrupeds.

這類誹謗在美國受到了憤怒的譴責(zé)，這是不足為怪的。托馬斯·杰斐遜在他的《弗吉尼亞州筆記》中氣憤地(而又令人費(fèi)解地，除非你知道來龍去脈)進(jìn)行反駁，還勸他在新罕布什爾州的朋友約翰·沙利文派20名士兵去北部叢林，找一頭麋鹿送給布豐，以證明美洲四足動物的高大和威武。

It took the men two weeks to track down a suitable subject. The moose, when shot,unfortunately lacked the imposing horns that Jefferson had specified, but Sullivan thoughtfullyincluded a rack of antlers from an elk or stag with the suggestion that these be attachedinstead. Who in France, after all, would know?

士兵們花了兩個星期才找到合適的目標(biāo)。不幸的是，麋鹿被擊斃以后，他們發(fā)現(xiàn)它沒有杰斐遜專門提到的一對威風(fēng)凜凜的角，但沙利文周到地加上了一對駝鹿角或是赤鹿角，意思是，這是另外附上的。畢竟，在法國，誰會知道呢?

Meanwhile in Philadelphia—Wistar's city—naturalists had begun to assemble the bones of agiant elephant-like creature known at first as "the great American incognitum" but lateridentified, not quite correctly, as a mammoth. The first of these bones had been discovered ata place called Big Bone Lick in Kentucky, but soon others were turning up all over. America, itappeared, had once been the home of a truly substantial creature—one that would surelydisprove Buffon's foolish Gallic contentions.

與此同時，在威斯塔的家鄉(xiāng)費(fèi)城，博物學(xué)家著手裝配一頭大象似的大動物的骨頭。起初它被稱做“不知名的美洲大動物”，后來又不大正確地被確定為一頭哺乳動物。第一批這種骨頭是在肯塔基州一個名叫大骨地的地方發(fā)現(xiàn)的，但很快在各地都發(fā)現(xiàn)了。看來美洲一度生活著某種大動物——那種動物肯定能證明法國人布豐的可笑論點(diǎn)不能成立。