The Hickman courier., 1878-06-21
True Inwardness of the Cardiff
Giant.

an ignorant Binghamton IN " to
bacconist, by the name OF George Hull,
to outwit and entrap them. Huh had a
discussion one evening, during the year
1866, with an Iowa minister concerning
the existence of giants in tie olden time,
the latter maintaining the Affirmative OF
the question and the former the negative.
The clergyman, having a readier tongue,
got tue better cf Hull, who, stung by his
defeat, determined upon = nest revenge.
He conceived the idea o. carving 8 rough
statue out of soft stone that should pass
for Petri6ed giant, and in 1868 he pro-
ceeded to pht his plans into practice.
After trying in vain to secure, block
of gypsum near Fort Dodge, Iowa, ne
.prospected along the lineof the Dubuque
ana 5otfx y-srss s-isas.. tSs<eesz
and having found a suitable quarry
hired gang of railroad hands iof a bar
rel of beer TO get a slab cut for him. 1t
took one whole Sunday to quarry the
gypsum, and when ready for shipment
the block weighed three and one half
tons, and measured twelve feet in length,
four feet in breadth and twenty-five
inches in thickness. 1t was consigned 10
E. Burghard, Chicago, and in his barn it
was chiseled into shape, Edward Sale, a
German, and one Markham, an Amer
ican, doing the cutting. No particular
idea was followed out in fashioning the
image, for although Hull wanted it TO
represent fossil man "who had laid
down and died" he was suspicious that
the deception would not be a success,
and concluded TO modify it 50 that it
would pass for an ancient statue.
To give it the appearance of age it was
rubbed with sand and water, and the
entire surface was punctured with needles
to produce an imitation of the pores of
the skin. Finally it was bathed in ink
and wsshed in sulphuric acid Thus
prepared, it was shipped to Union n.
Y, weighing at that time three thousand
seven hundred and tweEty pounds. 1t
arrived at its destination Oct. y, 1868,
and the 4th of the following month was
shipped by a four-hOrse team, in charge
of one Of Hu ll's nephews, to Cardiff,
small village in Onandaga county, one
hundred and thirty-two miles west of
Albany. It took five days to transport
it, and as a rain storm was prevailing
when it reached the Newell relative
of HulPs-farm, il attracted little atten-
tion. The place had been selected for
the twofold reason that fossils mad been
discovered in the neighborhood, and that
Newell contracted for One-fOurth interest
to manage the business of resurrection.
The image was duly inferred few
nights later, and in October Of the fol-
lowing year (1869) Newell received
orders to " find the giant" Laborers
were engaged to sink we'll On She spot,
AMI. ssr q,
exhumed, one OF the diggers ejaculating,
as he laid it bare, Jerusalem, it's big
Injun." A crowd quickly gathered,
the news spread, the papers published
exciting accounts of the discovery, and
the CardiR giant was speedily launched
into fame. Four doctors OF scientific
pretensions in the vicinity pronounced
it "petrifed man" DR.. Boynton,
Syracuse antiquarian, said it was
statue "mads some three hundred years
age by the Jesuit fathers" b" and offered
$4,000 for it. A month later a delega-
ton of scientists from all parts of the
state made thorough" inspection of
il and proclaimed it a -tatue-in the
opinion of Prof. Hull, state geologist,
very ancient one. Prof Ward. of the
Rochester university, declared 1t worthy
the attention of archseologists, though
not dating hack to the stone age.
While the excitement was at its height
Hull sold three-quarLers interest to
some Rochester people, and it was then
to visitors at so much head,
the returns for while being equal to
seven per cent. interest on $3,000,000.
At one time $4,000 was offered for
one-eight share. In all, Hull made
$50, 900 by the humbug. Its exposure
was due TO Prof. o. G.. Marsh, of Yale
College, who was less credulous than the
who pronounced it "not
thing contrived of man, but the face of
one who lived like all the earth. the
very image and child of God" The
professor showed that gypsum was
soluble in four hundred parts of water,
yet the giant betrayed small trace of
its action, aud pointed out certain tool
marks that Hull had neglected to efface.
The theory that it was an ancient statue
was also effectually exploded by the
simple fact that the giants head was
minus any representation of hair.
Finally, his coniederates confessed their
share in the fraud, and though it after
ward created a furore in Boston, where
even Ralph Waldo Emerson pronounced
it beyond his depth, the full publication
OF some telltale letters soon made it
worthless for show purposes { Popular
Science Monthly.