The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1877-02-03

In memoir read before the Academy of
Sciences at Rouen, NJ. lie Cat gives the fol.
lowing account of giants that are said to have
existed in different ages: "Profane histori-
ans have given seven feet of height to Her
cules, the first hero, and in our day we have
seen men eight feet high. The giant who
was shown IN Rouen, IN 1884, measured eight
feet some inches. The emperor Maximnus
was of that size. Shenens and Platerus, ply
sicians of the last century, saw several OF that
statue, and Horepius saw a girl who was ten
feet high The Body of Orestes, according to
the Greeks, was eleven feet and half; the
giant Galbara, brought from Arabia to Rome,
under ClaudiuS Cesar was near ten feet high i
and the bones of SecondIlla and Pusio, keep
ers of the gardens of Sallust, were but SIX in
ches shorter Funnam, a Scotchman, who
lived in the time of Eugene H., king of Scot
land, measured eleven feet and half and
Jacob LIE Marie, in his voyage to the Straits
of Magellan, reports that on the seventeenth
of December, 1916 they found at Fort Desire
several graves covered with stones, and hav-
ing the curiosity to remove the stones they
discovered human skeletons ten and eleven
feet long. The Chevaler Scory, IN his voy-
age to the Peak of Tenerffe, says they found
in one of the sepulchral caveIns in that noun
tam the head of gaunche, which had eighty
teeth and that the body was not less than fiji
teen feet long. The giant Feragus, slain by
Orlando, nephew of Charlemagne, was eigh-
teen feet high. Roland, a celebrated anato-
mist, who wrote in 1914, says some years be
fore there was tn be seen i'll the suburbs of
st. Germain the 'omb Of the great giant Is
oret, who was twenty feet high. In Rouen,
in 1900, IN digging in the bitches near the
Dominicans, they found a stone tomb con.
tanning a skeleton, whose skull held a bushel
of corn, and whose SHIN bone reached up to
the girdle of the talest man there, being
about four feet long, and consequently the
body must have been seventeen or eighteen
feet high. Upon the tomb was plate of cop
per, whereon was engraved: In this tomb
lies the noble and pulssant lord, the Chevalier
Ricon de Galemont and his bones.' Platter
us, a famous physician, declares that he saw
at Lucerne the body of man which must
have been at least nineteen feet high. Val
lance of Dauphiny boasts of possessing the
bones OF the giant Bucart, iyrant of The vi
varies, who was slain with an arrow by the
count de Cabillion, his vassal. The DCmini-
cans had part of the shin bone, with the ar
tculation of his knee, and his figure painted
in tresco, with an inscription showing that
this giant was twenty-five and half feet
high, and that his bones were found in 1908,
near the banks of the Morderl, a little river
near the foot of the mountain of Crusal, upon
which tradition saysl the giant dwelt.
The Emperor OF Brazil, who Is at present
travelling in Egypt, met with disagreeable
adventure the other day III Cairo. His MAJ
esty is very fond of donkey riding and one
morning, having descended into the street in
a Jacket and small cap, with "A light switch
under his arm, mounted one of these little an.
finals and trotted off on an expedition through
a labyrinth of back streets On returning
from his ride, not wishing to alight from the
donkey in front of the hotel, he pulled 1t up
few hundred wards from the building, and
not having any y" small change" in his pocket,
gave the donkey driver guinea instead OF
pIastre. The donkey driver, however, bad
never before seen coin OF this nature, anG
looking first at the guinea and then at the
Emperor, came 10 the conclusion that the
guinea was merely q worthless counter, and
that an attempt was being made to " chisel'
! him The row he made was terrific rushing
after the Emperor, who had walked off at
randi mace toward the hotel where his suite
were anyiously awaiting him, the donkey
driver assailed his Majesty with all the most
horrible oaths in the Arab vocabulary. The
Funeror. who does not understand Il single
word of Arabic, but saw that the man was la.
boring under misapp-ehenslon, endeavored
in VAIN To explain 10 him that the coin was
gold anu not copper, III tue meantime OtneE
donkey drivers hurried 70 the spot, and TAX
ing the part OF their mate, followed the En-.
peror with a storm of imprecations. Thus
SURROUNDED by mob of donkeys and their
drivers, the haplcss Dom Pedro at last reach
ed his hotel. where the whole affair was ex
planned, and the donkey drivers, discovering
the true state of the case, miraculously disap-
reared in the twlnkling of an eye.
The largest bell IN the world is at Moscow,
and weighs $4,000 pounds. 1t was never
| hung, because 10 supports strong enough TO
hold II could be devised. II is now used as
! a chapel. Moscow also boasts the second lar
gest bell in the world, weighing $4,000
hounds, but this fell in 1855. Pekin comes
third with bell weighing 1900 pounds,
and then-though at a huge interval-Pdris
with $4,000 pounds, the weight of the bell at
No,re Dame. Big Ben," IN London, comes
fifth, with 5000 pounds.
Autograph Albums, new styles, q: osmau &