The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1906-04-24
THE GIANTS OF OLD
ANCIENT RACES MARVELs OF PHYS
IcAL DEVELOPMENT.


The semibarbarians of One Thousand
Years Ago Were All Remarkably
Proportioned Men The Giants of
Ancient Greece and Rome.
That the human race has degener
ated In size as well as longevity is
fact well attested by various authori
ties. A prominent Washington physi-
clan who has made a life study of
brain and cerebral developments, says
that, ON visiting the catacombs of Par
Is, what struck him most In those vast
repositories of the contents Of the
city's ancient graveyards was the
great size of the skulls In comparison
with those of more modern mankind.
This superiority of development in the
men who lived 1000 years or more ago
the scientist attributes to the open air
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
mainly were ty no means rare at one
period of the worlds history.
Thus it is mentioned that the Emper
or Maximian was eight feet some inch
es high. The body of Orestes, accord
ing to the Greeks, was eleven and a
half feet III height, the giant Galbora,
brought from Arabia to Rome under
Claudius Caesar, measured near ten
feet, and the bones of Secondilla and
Pusio, keepers of the gardens of Sal
lust, were but six inches shorter.
The probability is that outside Of cul-
tivated Greece and Rome among the
semibarbarous of the greater part Of
present day European nations physical
development reached often to more
wondrous proportions.
The Chevaller Scory in his voyage to
the peak of Tenerife says that they
found In one of the sepulchral caverns
of that mountain the head of q
Guanche 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.
Rowland, a celebrated anatomlst who
wrote In 1914, says that some years
before that time there was to be seen
In the suburbs of ST. Germane 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 a
skeleton whose shin bone reached up
to the girdle of the tallest man there,
being about four feet long. and conse-
quently the body must have been sew
enteen or eighteen feet high. Upon the
tomb was plate of COPPER upon which
was engraved, ''In this tomb lies the
noble and puissant lord, the Chevalier
Ruon de Vallemont and his bones"
There is, indeed, evidence in the pom
derous armor and two handed swords
which remain to us In museums to
prove that the knight Of the ages of
chivlary was a heroic specimen of hui
man architecture.
| Patterns, famous physician, de-
clared that he saw at Lucarne the true
human bones of a subject who must
have been at 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 Cabillon,
his vassal. The Dominicans had part
of bis shin bone, with the articulation
of the knee, and his figure painted in
fresco, with an inscription showing
that this giant was twenty-five and
one-half feet high and that his bones
were found In 1706 near the banks of
the Moderi, a little river at the foot of
the mountain of Crusol, upon which
tradition says the giant dwelt.
On Jan. IL, $685. some masons dig
ging near the ruins of a castle in
Dauphine, in a locality which had long
been known as 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 gray stone, with the words
'Theotobochus Rex" cut thereon.
When the tomb was opened they found
human skeleton, entire. twenty-five
and one-half feet long, ten feet wide
across the shoulders and FIVE feet deep
| from the breastbone to the back The
teeth were each about the size Of an
ox's foot, and his shin bone measured
four feet.
Near Margarine, in Sicily, In 1915,
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, a skeleton Of a giant
thirty feet long was found in the year
1913 and another thirty-three feet high
in 1850. Several Of the gigantic bones
Of the latter subject are still preserved
by private persons in Italy.
The Athenians found thirty-two IA
nous skeletons, one thirty-four and
another thirty six feet In height.
At Totic, in Bohemia, in 766, was
found skeleton the head of which
could scarcely be encompassed by the
arms of two men together and whose
legs, which are still preserved in the
castle of the city, were twenty-six feet
long.
The celebrated English scientist, Sir
Hans Sloane, who treated the matter
very learnedly, does not doubt the
facts above narrated, but thinks the
bones were those Of elephants, whales
or other animals. But 1t has been well
remarked that, while elephants bones
may be shown for those of giants to
superficial observers, this can never
impose upon such distinguished anat-
omists as have testified in many cases
to the mammoth bones being unmis-
takably human.-Philadelphi Record.
The Bengali.
The Bengali has the best brains of
all the peoples in India and the readi-
est tongue. His memory is prodigious
and his fertility in talk inexhaustible.
He is something of an Irishman, some
thing Of an Italian, something of a
Jew-if one can conceive an Irishman
who would run away from a fight In
stead Of running into II, an Italian
without sense of beauty and q Jew
who would not risk f5 on the chance
Of making $500. He is very clever, but
his cleverness does not lead him far on
the road to achievement, for when II
comes to doing, rather than talking.
he is easily passed by people of far
inferior ability.-London Standard.
Resources of Genius.
The editor looked over the manu-