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The Nutty Lives of these American Leaders Were Anything But Ordinary

Khalid Elhassan August 25, 2022 38 min

21. Jefferson Went Out of His Way to Gather Evidence of the Bigness of North American Animals

Nutty Moments - Assertions about North American animals in Count Buffon's book riled up Thomas Jefferson — Assertions about North American animals in Count Buffon’s book riled up Thomas Jefferson. Imgur

Count Georges-Louis Leclerc Buffon diss of North America’s mega fauna seriously ticked off Thomas Jefferson. So he decided to disprove the count’s theory. He went to great lengths – as in totally nutty lengths – to win the argument. Jefferson was extremely upset by Buffon’s Theory of New World Degeneration. Rather than dismiss it as silly gibberish, Jefferson saw Buffon’s take as an insult to America and its potential greatness. So he set out to challenge the Frenchman with evidence of American bigness. For starters, he wrote friends back home, and asked them to measure the size of American animals.

Among the responses was one from James Madison, who sent precise measurements of a Virginian weasel, including the “distance between the anus and vulva“. Like a Founding Father version of George Costanza from Seinfeld, Jefferson grew increasingly obsessed with the need to prove Buffon wrong. So he painstakingly compiled the measurements in a table. It included comparisons such as those between 12-pound American otters versus 8.9-European counterparts, and 410-pound American bears vs 153.7-pound European ones. Eager to confront the Frenchman, Jefferson accepted a dinner invitation at Buffon’s home, and headed there armed with his data for a showdown.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.