Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1900-06-22
OLDEN-TIME GIANTS.
EARTH ONCE INHABITED BY BIG
MEN.
A Warrior Slain by Charlemasne Fully Eish-
teen Feet High Skeleton Of an Ancient
King Measured Twenty-Five Feet-CoIossaI
Bones Discovered in Tombs.
From the Washington Times.

teen Feet 1Igh h-SkeletOn OF an Ancient
King Measured Twenty-Five Feet-CoIossaI
| Bones Discovered in Tombs.
| From the Washington Times
That The human race has dcgener-
ated IN size as we'll as longevity is a
fact we'll attested by various authori-
ties. A well-known physician OF this
city, who has made life study OF
brain and cerebral development, says
that visiting the catacombs of Paris,
what struck him most in those vast
ancient graveyards was the great size
OF the skulls in comparison with those
OF more modern mankind. This su-
periority of development of the men
who lived thousand years ago the
doctor attributes to the oper- .ir life
then in vogue and the physical sports
! and exercises INDUCED in.
There are several races of giants
mentioned in the bible, and the Greek
and Roman historians have recorded
! many examples which serve to show
that these specimens Of elongated hu-
manity were by no means rare at one
period OF the worlds history.
Thus it is mentioned that the EN-
peror Maximilian was eight feet some
inches high. The body of Orestes, ac-
cording to the Greeks, was eleven feet
and a hall in height; the giant Gal.
bora, brought from Arabia to Rome
under Claudius Cesar, measured near
ten feet, and the bones of Secondilla
and Pusio, keepers of the gardens of
Salust, were but six inches shorter.
The probability is that, outside of
cultivated Greece and Rome, among
the semibarbarous ancestors Of the
greater part of present day European
nations physical development reached
often to more wondrous proportions.
The Chevalier Scory, in his voyage
to the peak of Teneriffe, says that they
found in one of the sepulchral caverns
OF that mountain the head of Guam
che which had eighty teeth and that
the body was not less than fifteen feet
long. The giant Ferragus, slain by
! Orlando, nephew OF Charlemagne, was
eighteen feet high.
Revland, a celebrated anatomist,
who wrote in 1914. says that some
years before that time there was to be
seen in the suburbs of st. Germaine
the tomb of the giant Isoret, who was
twenty feet high.
At Rouen, in 1909, in digging in the
bitches near the Dominicamo, there
was found a stone tomb containing q
skeleton, whose skull held bushel of
corn and whose shin bone reached up
to the girdle OF the tallest man there,
being about four feet long, and conse.
qnently the body must have been sew
enteen or eighteen feet high. Upon
the tomb was plate of copper, upon
which was engraved, ain this tomb
lies the noble and puissant lord, the
Chevalier RuOn de Vallemont, and his
bones." There is, indeed, evidence in
the ponderous armor and two-handed
swords, which remain to us in mu-
seums, to prove that the knight of the
ages of chivalry was an heroic speci-
men OF human architecture.
! Platerins. a famous physician, de-
clared that he saw at Lucarne the true
human bones of subject, which must
have been ut least nineteen feet high.
Valance, in Dauphine, boasts of pos.
sessing the bones of the giant Bucart,
tyrant of the Vivarais, who was slain
by an arrow by the Count de Babillon,
his vassal. The Dominicans had q
part of the shin bone, with the articu-
lation of the knee, and his figure
painted in fresco, with an inscription
showing that this giant was twenty
two and one-half feet high and that
his bones were found in 1705 near the
banks OF the Morderi, a little river at
the foot Of the mountain of Crusol,
upon which (tradition says) the giant
dwelt.
On Jan. IL, 1913, some masons dig
ging near the ruins of castle in Dau-
phine, in locality which had long
been called the giants field, at the
depth of eighteen feet discovered a
brick tomb thirty feet long, twelve feet
wide and eight feet high, on which
was a gray stone. with the words
Theutobochus Cex" cut thereon.
When the tomb was opened they
found human skeleton entire, twen-
ty-fve and one-half feet long, ten feet
wide across the shoulders and five feet
deep from the breast bone to the back.
The teeth were each about the size of
An ox's foot and his shin bone meas
ured four feet.
Near Magazine, in Sicily, in l5l6,
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 Ma
CARA, in Sicily, skeleton of giant
thirty feet long was found in the year
1913 and another thirty-three feet
high in 1850. Several of the gigantic