Smyrna times., 1906-05-09


That the human race has degener-
ated in size as well as longevity is a
fact we'll attested by various authori
ties. \ prominent Washington physi-
elan 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 indulged 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 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 in 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 Chevalier ScOry in his voyage to
the peak of Tenerife says that they
found in one of the sepulchral cayerns
of that mountain the head of a
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.
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. Germane the
tomb of the giant Isoret, who was
twenty feet high.
At ROuen sin 1909, in digging in the
bitches near the Dominicamo, there
was found q stone tomb containing q
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 a plate of copper upon which
was engraved, 'In this tomb lies the
~ BE 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 heroic specimen of hu-
man architecture.
Platerins. a 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,
by an arrow by the Count de Cabillon,
his vassal. The Dominicans had part
of his 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
one1half feet high and that his bones
werb found in 1905 near the banks of
no 1nri fs1xr of fhe ~
the mountain of Crusol, upon which
tradition says the giant dwelt.
On Jan. IL, 1888, some masons dig
ging near the ruins of q castle in
Dauphine, in locality which had long
been Eilown as the Giants field, at the
depth of eighteen feet discovered q
brick tomb thirty feet long, twelve
feet wide and eight feet high. on which
was a 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 deeI
from the breastbone to the back. The
teeth were each about the size of al
ox's foot, and his shin bone measured
four feet.
Near Margarine, in Sicily, in 1916
was found a giant thirty feet high
His head was the size of a hogshead
and each Of his teeth weighed fiv,
ounces.
Near Palermo, in the valley Of Ma
CARA, in Sicily, skeleton of a gian
thirty feet long was found in the yea
1548 and another thirty-three feet higl
in 1850. Several of the gigantic bone
of the latter subject are still preserve,
by private persons in Italy.
The Athenians found thirty-two ia
nous skeletons. one thirty-four an
another thirty-six feet in height.
At Totic, in Bohemia, in 75S, wa
found a skeleton the head of whic
could scarcely be encompassed by th
arms Of two men together and who's
legs, which are still preserved in tb
castle Of the city, were twenty-slx fee
long.