GEOLOGY. 589 



The learned were not more exempt than the vulgar from 

 these kinds of errors. Father Kircher, in his remarkable 

 work on the subterranean world ("Mundus Subterraneus "), 

 gives figures of these giants alongside of men of ordinary 

 size. 



The skeleton of an elephant discovered in Switzerland, at 

 the foot of a tree torn up by the wind, was considered by 

 F. Plater, the anatomist, as the skeleton of a giant nineteen 

 feet high. He even restored it by means of a sketch which 

 became celebrated, and which was to be seen some time 

 ago at Lucerne in an ancient college of the Jesuits. 



In the reign of Louis XIII. there was found on the banks 

 of the Rhone a skeleton which attained great celebrity. It 

 was shown as that of Teutobocchus, defeated by Marius in 

 a most sanguinary struggle. It was said to have been ex- 

 humed from a tomb bearing this inscription, " Teutobocchus 

 rex," in which were also found some medals with the same 

 title. But despite all this evidence, the remains of this too 

 famous king of the Cimbri, which gave rise to so many bit- 

 ter disputes among the faculty and physicians of Paris, were 

 recognized by De Blainville as being nothing more than 

 those of a narrow-toothed mastodon (M. angustidens). 



The name of the Field of Giants is even often given to 

 places in which the bones of elephants and mastodons 

 abound. 1 



1 Near Bogota, at a height of 2660 metres (about 8750 feet), there is a field 

 filled with bones of mastodons, called there the Campo de Gigantes (field of the 

 giants), in which Humboldt had some excavations made with great care. 

 Cosmos, b. i., p. 321. 



