An Account of GIANTS, from a Memorial lately read before the Academy of Sciences at Rouen, by M. Le Cat.
THE Bible mentions several races of giants, as the Rephaims, the Anakims, the Emims, the Zanzonims, and others. Profane historians also mention giants; they gave 7 feet of height to Hercules their first hero, and in our days we have seen men 8 feet high. The giant who was shown at Rouen, in 1735, measured 8 feet some inches. The Emperor Maximin was of that size; Skenkius and Platerus, physicians of the last century, saw several of that stature; and Goropius saw a girl who was 10 feet high.
The body of Orestes, according to the Greeks, was 11 feet and a half; the giant Galbara, brought from Arabia to Rome, under Claudius Caesar, was near 10 feet; and the bones of Secondilla and Pusio, Keepers of the Gardens of Salust, were but 6 Inches shorter.
Funnam, a Scotsman, who lived in the time of Eugenic II. King of Scotland, measured 11 feet and a half; and Jacob le Maire, in his voyage to the Straits of Magellan, reports that on the 17th of December, 1615, they found at Port Desire several graves covered with stones; and having the curiosity to remove the stones, they discovered human skeletons of 10 and 11 feet long.
The Chevalier Scory, in his voyage to the peak of Teneriffe, says that they found in one of the sepulchral caverns of that mountain the head of a Guanche which had 80 teeth, and that the body was not less than 15 feet long.
The giant Ferragus, slain by Orlando, nephew of Charlemain, was 18 Feet high.
Rioland, a celebrated anatomist, who wrote in 1614, says that some years before there was to be seen in the suburbs of St. Germain the tomb of the giant Isoret, who was 20 feet high.
In Rouen, in 1509, in digging in the ditches near the Jacobins, they found a stone tomb containing a skeleton whose skull held a bushel of corn, and whose shin bone reached up to the girdle of the tallest man there; being about 4 feet long, and consequently the body must have been 17 or 18 feet high. Upon the tomb was a plate of copper, whereon was engraved, “In this tomb lies the noble and puissant Lord the Chevalier Ricon de Vallemont, and his bones.” Platerus, a famous physician, declares that he saw at Lucerne the true human bones of a subject, which must have been at least 19 feet high.
Valence in Dauphine boasts of possessing the bones of the giant Bucart, Tyrant of the Vivaris, who was slain by an arrow by the Count de Cabillon his Vassal. The Dominicans had part of the shin bone, with the articulation of the knee, and his figure painted in Fresco, with an inscription, showing that this giant was 22 feet and a half high, and that his bones were found in 1705, near the banks of the Merderi, a little river at the foot of the Mountain of Crussol, upon which (tradition says) the giant dwelt.
January 11, 1613, some Masons digging near the ruins of a Castle in Dauphine, in a field, which by tradition had long been called the Giant’s Field, at the depth of 18 feet, discovered a brick tomb, 30 feet long, 12 feet wide, and 8 feet high, on which was a grey stone, with the words Theutobochus Rex cut thereon: When the tomb was opened they found a human skeleton entire, 25 feet and a half long, 10 feet wide across the shoulders, and 5 feet deep from the breast bone to the back; his teeth were each the size of an ox’s foot, and his shin bone measured 4 feet.
Near Mazarino in Sicily, in 1516, was found a giant 30 feet high; his head was the size of a hogshead, and each of his teeth weighed 5 ounces.
Near Palermo, in the Valley of Mazzara in Sicily, a skeleton of a giant 30 feet long was found in the year 1548, and another of 33 feet long in 1550; and many curious persons have preserved several of these gigantic bones.
The Athenians found near their city two famous skeletons, one of 34, and the other of 36 feet high.
At Totu in Bohemia, in 758, was found a skeleton, the head of which could scarce be encompassed by the arms of two men together, and whose legs, which they still keep in the castle of that city, were 26 feet long.
The skull of the giant found in Macedonia, Sept 1691, held 210 lb of corn.
The celebrated Sir Hans Sloane, who treated this Matter very learnedly, does not doubt these facts, but thinks the bones were those of elephants, whales, or other enormous animals.
Elephants bones may be shown for those of giants, but they can never impose on connoisseurs.
Whales, which by their immense bulk are more proper to be substituted for the largest giants, have neither arms nor legs, and the head of that animal hath not the least resemblance with that of a man; and if it be true, therefore, that a great number of the gigantic bones which we have mentioned have been seen by anatomists, and have by them been reputed real human bones, the existence of giants is proved.
