The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-12-13
GIANTS MAY HAVE EXISTED.

Why Not, When So Many Ancient Nom
sters Are Known to Scieace?
1t is thing worthy of some notice
that there is hardly any collection of
folk lore that does not contain some
reference to human beings of a size far
| above that of the ordinary man. These
giants were only great in stature, their
intellectual characteristics being even
| below those of the ordinary man who
| lived in the dim fable land of prehis-
toric times. In the worlds nursery
tales the giant often figures together
with fairies and elfn sprites, and
when those tales are outgrown there is
general disposition to class the giant
with other denizens of fairyland as a
mere myth of the imagination, a com
panion of hobgoblins and talking cats.
The ogre vanishes with Puss in Boots
or Jack and the Bean Stock as sci
entifc impossibility.
Of truth science has not as yet given
assent to any theory that there once
existed race of giants on this earth.
Even the once despised dragon and the
scorned sea serpent have found a
warmer niche in the scientific heart
than Cog and Magog. Scientific ag-
Mysticism has no credence for the stir
ring stories of giants, like those of
Gaelic and Teutonic folk lore. Yet it is
quite possible that science is wrong
and that tradition is right 1t can be
taken as fact that tradition often is
accepted as right when new discoveries
bring to light the long-hidden relics of
an obscure past. Priam, Agamemnon
and other figures of tradition have been
accepted as realities by modern his
tory as the result OF discoveries of this
century. In the main tradition is
proving to be much more reliable
than it once seemed. Even on the giant
question some modern scientists may
be said to be ION the fence" as a conse-
quence of the discoveries of late years.
To the unscientifc, however, there APP
pears to be good reason for believing in
a race of giants as a matter of common
sense.
When the world was first covered
with animals these creatures were of
great size. 1t is generally believed that
than his descendants, and in the steady
progress of growth it seems strange in
deed if he did not attain greater size in
his many years. More than this, how
ever, the prehistoric creatures are
known to have been of wondrous pro-
portions. The hypsiprimnus was some
thirty feet long, and the modern kan
CARGO would seem dwarf beside him.
The mosasaurus was eighty feet long,
while his modern descendants vary in
size from the alligator to the crocodile,
rarely, if ever, twenty feet long. The
larlaps, a jumping lizard, stood twenty
five feet high, dwarfing the lizards of
the present day to insignifcance. In
view of these facts is it unreasonable to
conjecture that amid that world of
monster creatures monster men also
stalked? Science, because it has not as
yet found as many skeletons OF giant
men as of giant lizards, gives no sup
port to the traditions which uphold the
existence of such race of human De
ings; but as from time immemorial
mankind has kept its dead in inaccessi-
bic places, the failure as vet to discover
mammoth men, in view also Of the fact
that wild animals were far more plenti-
full than prehistoric men. and that even
of the primeval animals but few re-
mains have been discovered, it is more
than unwise TO conclude that in this
matter tradition IS wholly at fault
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