In his multivolume Histoire Naturelle, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon advanced a theory of degeneracy for the animals of this place, arguing that they tended to be small and weak. For 10 points each:
[10e] Name this general place. Watercolors of the birds of this title place constitute the best-selling book by John James Audubon.
ANSWER: America [or the Americas; or North America; or the Western Hemisphere; or New World; prompt on the United States by asking “What more general region of the world is it part of?”]
[10m] This polymath used examples of mastodon bones found in North America to counter Buffon in his Notes on the State of Virginia.
ANSWER: Thomas Jefferson
[10h] This well-traveled naturalist once dined beneath Charles Wilson Peale’s mastodon skeleton in Philadelphia. He also wrote the encyclopedic book Kosmos.
ANSWER: Alexander von Humboldt [or Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt]
<Michael Bentley, Other - Other Academic and General Knowledge> ~17883~ <Editor: Michael Bentley>