ity of the
other animals of America, without more facts, I can add nothing to what
I have said in my Notes.

As to the theory of Monsieur de Buffon, that heat is friendly, and
moisture adverse to the production of large animals, I am lately
furnished with a fact by Dr. Franklin, which proves the air of London
and of Paris to be more humid than that of Philadelphia, and so creates
a suspicion that the opinion of the superior humidity of America,
may, perhaps, have been too hastily adopted. And supposing that fact
admitted, I think the physical reasonings urged to show, that in a moist
country animals must be small, and that in a hot one they must be large,
are not built on the basis of experiment. These questions, however,
cannot be decided ultimately, at this day. More facts must be collected,
and more time flow off, before the world will be ripe for decision. In
the mean time, doubt is wisdom.

I have been fully sensible of the anxieties of your situation, and that
your attentions were wholly consecrated, where alone they were wholly
due, to the succor of friendship and worth. However much I prize your
society, I wait with patience the moment when I can have it without
taking what is due to another. In the mean time, I am solaced with the
hope of possessing your friendship, and that it is not ungrateful to
you to receive the assurances of that with which I have the honor to be,
Dear Sir,

your most obedient

and most humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER LXII.--TO JOHN ADAMS, June 15, 1785

TO JOHN ADAMS.

Passy, June 15, 1785.

Sir,

Among the instructions given to the ministers of the United States for
treating with foreign powers, was one of the 11th of May, 1784, relative
to an individual of the name of John Baptist Picquet. It contains an
acknowledgement, on the part of Congress, of his merits and sufferings
by friendly services rendered to great numbers of American seamen
carried prisoners into Lisbon, and refers to us the delivering him
these acknowledgements in honorable terms, and the making him such
gratification, as may indemnify his losses, and properly reward his
zeal. This person is now is Paris, and asks whatever return is intended
for him. Being in immediate want of money, he has been furnished with
ten guineas. He expressed, desires of some appointment either for
himself or son at Lisbon, but has been told that none such are in our
gift, and that nothing more could be done for