The Roanoke daily times. (Roanoke, Va.) 1895-1897, 1896-03-10

Lizards Three Times the sligo of the Lar
gest Elephant and n Turtle Whose Shell
Looked Like N Uut-Marine Giants and
the Remarkable Plated Lizard.
The belief in race Of giants was
#once almost universal and held until
srecent years. Even today large skeletons
when found are sometimes reported as
being those Of ginnt human beings This
was especially true Of the period about
the tenth and eleventh centuries, and
jim the latter most amazing discovery
was reported, which threw the scien-
tific world Of the time into great excite
ment. 1t was said that the body of Pal
las, tho son of Evander, had been dis
covered beneath tho tomb of the emper-
or Henry III. The bones were enor-
NOUS, and it is unnecessary to state,
proved to have belonged to huge fossil
elephant. AS late as the fifteenth CEN
fury war Of words was waged over a
find Of large bones, one party claiming
that they belonged to the giant Teuto-
bochus. In 1867 giant was discovered
in Switzerland. The council Of Lucerne
requested learned scientific man, Pro-
fessor Felix Platter Of Basel. to report
upon it, and he not only announced the
bones az part Of human giant, but
made complete restoration, showing
tho man 90 feet high, which the proud
city adopted as an ancestor in the arms
of the commonwealth. Tho design and
some of the bones can still be seen in
the college Of Jesuits at Lucerne. I'm
fortunately for the theory and much to
the discontinue Of the people who had
raised to high pinnacle this mighty
ancestor, it was found to be the remains
of an elephant
Nearly all tho mastodon finds in this
country were attributed to giants, but
there Is no evidence that human giant
ever existed over feet in height, and it
lis extremely doubtful if this height was
ever attained.
Giants other than human are very COM
mon in all branches Of the animal king
dom-giants in every sense when com
pared to their pygmy representatives Of
today. Some years ago some laborers in
the Senalik hills of India were engaged
upon government work when they
came upon the remains Of q turtle that
proved beyond question that these ami
mails had their giants in the days of old
The shell which the men exposed might
have been used as shelter for several
mon, and at first, before its bony nature
was observed, it was thought by the ma
Itives to be q hut of some kind. Fortu-
nately the bones were uninjured, and
they were taken out and removed to the
British museum, where complete res
toration Of the animal may be SEEN The
length Of the turtle was 10 feet, its
horizontal circumference 30 feet, and its
igirth 15 feet, but it was estimated by
scientists that this was not an adult,
and that when fully grown this huge
creature would display 4, domelike back
8 or 8 feet high, giving total length of
30 feet.
I One of the common animals in equa-
torial South America and in Central
America is tho lizard, iguana. which at
tains length Of or feet and is con-
sidered q large lizard, but it was q pyg-
my when compared to an ancestor that
once wandered over England and vari-
Gus portions Of the world. A number Of
years ago some workingmen were oxca-
waiting and blasting in a quarry near
Maidstone. England. when some bones