Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1879-12-10
Mammoth Men.

| Profane histor ans mention giants; they
gave seven feet of height to Hercules, the
first hero, and in our day we have seen men
eight feet high. The giant who was shown
/ in Rouen in 1885 measured eight feet some
inches. The Emperor Maximin was of
l that size; Shenkins and Ploterus physicians
of that stature, and Gorcpius saw a girl
who was ten feet high. The body of Or
ostes, according to the Greeks, was eleven
and half feet. The giant Calabro, brought
/ from Arabia To Rome, under Claudius
Cesar. was nearly ten feet, and the bones
! of Secoudilla and Puflo, keepers of the
gardens of Sallust, were but six inches
shorter. Farnum, Scotchman, who lived
at the time Of Eugene the Second, King Of
Scotland, measured eleven and a half feet; ;
and Jacob Marie, in his voyage TO the Straits
of Magellan, reports that on the 18th day
of December, 1915, they found at Port De
sire several graves covered with stones, and
having the curiosity to remove the stones
they found human skeletons ten feet long,
and some eleven feet.
The Chevalier Scory, in his voyage to the
Peak of Teneriffe, says they found in one of
the sepulchral caverns of that mountain, the
head of a Gaunche which had eighty teeth,
and that the body was not less than fifteen
fee. lang. The giant Ferragus, who was
slain by Orlando, nephew of Charlemange,
was eighteen feet high. Roland, a cele-
brated anatOnist, who wrote in l6l+, SAYS
that some years before there was to be seen
in the stfburbs of st. German the tomb Of
the giant Isoret, who was twenty feet high.
January II, 1913, masons digging near the
ruins of a castle IN Dauphine in a field
which by tradition had long been called the
GIants's field, at the depth of eighteen feet,
discovered brick tomb thirty feet long,
twelve feet wide and eight high, on which
was gray stone with the words ''TheutO-
bOchus Rex" Engraved thereon. When the
tomb was opened they found human
skeleton entire, twenty six and a quarter
feet high, eighteen feet around across the
shoulders and five feet deep from the breast
bone to the back. His feet were about the
size of an ox's foot, and his shin-bone meas
ured four feet.
Near Nezarina, in Sicily, 1918, was found
a giant thirty feet high. His head was the
size of hogshead @ and each of his teeth
weighed five ounces. Near Palermo, in the
valley of Mazaro, in Sicily, a skeleton of a
giant thirty feet long was found it the year
1913, and another thirty-three feet high in
1850; and many curious persons have pre-
served several OF these gigantic bones. The
Athenians found near their city two famous
skeletons, one thirty-four and the other
thirty-six feet high. At Totu, in Bohemia,
in 1888, was found a skeleton the head of
which could scarcely he encOmpassed by the
arms of two men together, and whose leg,
which they still keep in the castle of that
city. were twenty-siX feet long. The skull
of the giant found in Macedonia, September,
1891, held two hundred and ten pounds Of
corn. The celebrated Sir Hans Sloane,
who treated this matter very learncdly,
does not double these facts, but thinks the
bones were those of elephants. whales, or
other enormous animals. But elephants
bones may be shown for those of giants,
but they can never impose on connoiSseurs.
Whales, which by their immense bulk are
more properly to be substituted for the
largest giants. have neither arms or legs;
and the head of that animal has not the
least resemblance to that of a man. If II
be true, therefore, that a great number OF
gigantic bones which have been mentioned
have been seen by anatomists, and have
by them been reputed real human bones,
the existance of giants is proved.