524 THE STATURE OF MAN AT VARIOUS EPOCHS 



peoples into four groups, according to their average height. The 

 first group is that of the " tall-bodied." ranging from the English 

 (1.703 meters), the shortest among them, to the Tehuelches of Pata- 

 gonia (1.781 meters), the tallest, and including the Scotch (1.710 

 meters), the Scandinavians (1.713 meters), the Negroes of Guinea 

 ( 1.72-1 meters) , and the Polynesians ( 1.7G2 meters) . The second gi'oup 

 is of those " above the average " (l.GS meters to 1.70 meters), which, 

 beginning with the French (1.650 meters) at the bottom of the scale, 

 comprises the Russians (1.6G0 meters), the Germans (1.677 meters), 

 the Belgians (1.68-1 meters), and the Irish (1.697 meters). The size 

 of the third group, that is, of those below the average, ranges from 

 1.65 meters downward to 1.60 meters, and includes, among others, 

 the Hindoos (1.642 meters), the Chinese (1.63 meters), the Italians 

 of southern Italy, and the Peruvians. The last group is that of the 

 " short-bodied," wdiich includes, among others, the Malays and the 

 Lapps. 



The Patagonians, then, are only tall men, but they " hold the rec- 

 ord," which fact, however, has been disputed, first, in favor of a popu- 

 lation on the Upper Nile, the Dikas; next in favor of the Polynesians, 

 then the Scandinavians, and last, the Scotch. 



To recapitulate : There actually exists, then, no population or 

 ethnic group of giants. Specimens of giants do appear, but only in 

 isolated, individual, and accidental cases. Since physicianr at the 

 present time liken gigantism to a malady, we may say (from now on 

 borrowing their language) that this disease is nowhere endemic, that 

 it manifests itself a little everywhere, but in sporadic cases under 

 the influence of conditions yet to be determined. ' 



So much for the question of gigantism in present times. But the 

 question is not one of the present; it is the past that perplexes, and it 

 is the past with which we are concerned. 



III. 



As we have seen, it is in the past, in the long-distant past, in which 

 tradition has placed the origin of a race of giants, who have subse- 

 quently undergone a process of progressive degradation. This thesis 

 has been ad()])ted l)v a fair number of writers more or less qualified to 

 judge of the matter. Some of them, like Ilenrion in 1718, even ven- 

 tured to draw up a table giving in positive figures the series of degra- 

 dations undergone by the human stature in the course of time, from 

 Adam, said to have been 123 feet (40 meters), Abraham, 27 feet (9 

 meters), and Hercules, 10 feet (about 3 meters), to Alexander the 

 Great, 6.V feet (nearly 2 meters), and Caesar, 5 feet (1.62 meters). 

 These figures are so absolutely puerile and fantastic that they do not 

 merit attention. 



It is the task of anthropometry to try to estimate man's size in the 



