Arizona weekly journal-miner., 1898-02-23
THE GIANTS OF OLD
PREVIOUS AGES SUPPLY US WITH
 ENORMOUS FOSSIL BONES.

PREVIOUS AGES SUPPLY US WlTH ENORMOUS FOSSIL BONES. xazard, Three Times the siSs of the Lar xsss Elephant and Turtle Whose Shell xooked Like . Hut-zIarins Giants and the Remarkable Plated LlEar4.
 The belief in 0 race of giants was snce@ almost universal and held until kecenk years. Even today large skeletons whenfound arc sometimes reported as betna.those of giant human beings. This Easespecially true of the period about she stsnth and eleventh centuries, and fnsthe latter'a most amazing discovery was reported, which threw the scien- hacsworld of the time into great excite enent. sIs.was said that the body or Pal las, the lson of Evander, had been dis covered beneath the 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 elephaut As late as the fifteenth cen tury 0 war of words was waged over a find of large bones, one party claiming that they belonged to the giant Teuto- bochus. In 1857 a giant was discovered in Switzerland. The council of Lucerne requested learned scientific man, Pro- lessor Felix Platter of Basel to report upon is, and he not only announced the bones as part of Q human giant, but made a complete restoration, showing the man 20 feet high, which the proud city adopted as an ancestor iD the arms of the commonwealth. The design and some of the bones can still be seen in the college of Jesuits at Lucerne. Un' fortunately for the theory and much to the discontinue of the people who had raised to high pinnacle this mighty ancestor, it YVES found to be the remains of an elephant
 Nearly all the mAstodon finds in this country were attributed to giants, but there is no evidence that a human giant ever existed over feet in height, and it is extremely doubtful if this height was ever attained.
 Giants other than human are very oom- mon in all branches of the animal king dom-giants in every sense when com pared to their pygmy representatives ot today. Some years ago some laborers ID the Senalik hills of India were engaged upon 0 government work when they came upon the remains of a turtle that proved beyond question that these ami mals had their giants in the days of old The she'll which the men exposed might have been used as a shelter for several men, and at first, before its bony nature was observed, it was thought by the na- lives to be nut of some kind Forth nately the bones were uninjured, and they were taken out and removed to the British museum, where complete res ioration of the animal may be seen. The length of the turtle was 10 feet, its horizontal circumference 25 feet, and its girth 15 feet, but 1t was estimated by scientists that this was not an adult and that when fully grown this huge creature woald display domelike back or feet high, giving total length of 90 feet.
 One of the common animals in equa- torial South America and in Central America is the lizard, igaana, which at- Sains a length of or 5 feet and is con- Sidered large lizard, but 1t was a pyg- my when compared to an ancestor that once wandered over England and vari- ous portions of the world. 4 number of years ago some workingmen were exca. sating and blasting in a quarry near Maidstone, England, when some bones were uncovered that caused profound astonishment on the part of the finders. The skeleton was perfect, and as it was lifted out, bone by bone, their amaze ment increased, and the news was spread all over the country, attracting large numbers of people. When the bones were placed in their proper position, they were found to be the skeleton of Q gigantic lizard that when alive must have been three times as bulky as the largest living elephant and stood upon its hind legs like a kangaroo. tearing down branches from the highest trees Such an animal was a slow mover and sluggish and must have fallen an easy prey to the human hunters, if they CT. tsted
 The marine giants were even mors bizarre and remarkable than the land forms. If we can imagine the little igu- ana heightened out to 30 feet, its back spines changed to broad finlike objects, we form some idea of the appearance of one of the small dinosaurs, Stegosaurus angulatus, one of the most uncanny and remarkable creatures ever found. It is called the plated lizard, and the best skeleton was found on the eastern flank af the Rocky Mountains. Some of the plates with which this armored lizard were protected were two or three feet iu diameter and the spines over two feet in length. From the fact that the hind limbs were the largest, it is evil dent that this strange creature could lift itself up and sit like kangaroo, rest ing upon its powerful tail, which, with its enormous spines, must have bean c terrible weapon
 A giant from America had a skun 1 that measured eight feet in length. AL l most over the eyes were two large horns, Q third placed over the nose. The great length of the sknn was given by 8 hugs | crest that was protected by ridge of | long plates The mouth of the tricera- | tops was protected by horny bsak. In life it must have presented a formid- able appearance, with a body clumsy and low like that of hippopotamus, a long tail like an alligator's, its head calling to mind the rhinoceros. This monster was 25 feet in length and must have been one of the strangest animals pf its tima-Philadelphia Press.
 Sitting Up Late.