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GIANT. 



GIANTS' CAUSEWAY. 



101) 



have made war against Jupiter, and the latter to have been not more 

 than a foot high, and to have carried on war against the cranes which 

 used to come and plunder them. Mention is made of giant* in several 

 place* in Scripture, before the Flood, in the sixth chapter of Genesis, 

 and more plainly after it (Numbers, xiii.) ; but, as Dr. Durham 

 observes, the ancients vary as to the signification of the Hebrew word 

 'nephilim' in Genesis. Some translate it by a word signifying 

 ' violent men,' and think that instead of giants in stature, monsters of 

 rapine and wickedness were intended to be represented; and Dr. 

 Johnson says that the idea of a giant is always associated with some- 

 thing fierce, brutal, and wicked. With regard to the giants in 

 Numbers, who are more particularly mentioned, it is probable that 

 the fears of the spies magnified their dimensions. Races of giants are 

 also alluded to by the Greek and Roman historians. The Germans 

 are particularly noticed by Ctesar ('De BeL Gall.,' lib. L), and by 

 Tacitus (' De Morib. German.,' a 4), as being of large size. We have 

 no data for determining their exact stature, but there is no proof that 

 it exoeeded that of the tallest of the present German races, many of 

 whom, a* the inhabitants of Saxony and the Tyrol, are very large' 

 men. The notion of the existence of giants in former times, has in 

 many instances been founded on the discovery of the bones of different 

 large animals belonging to extinct species, which have been ascribed 

 to human subjects of immoderate stature. (See the story in Herodo- 

 tus, i. 68.) The bones of an elephant have even been figured and 

 described by Buffon as remains of human giants, in the supplement to 

 his classical work (torn. v.). The extravagance of such suppositions 

 has been completely exposed by the accuracy of modern investigation. 

 Descending to more modern times, the people who have excited the 

 most curiosity and given rise to the most conflicting statements are 

 the Patagonians. The first navigators by whom they were observed 

 represented them as being of colossal stature ; but though more recent 

 and accurate accounts describe them as being a very tall race of men, 

 yet the highest does not much exceed 7 feet Captain Wallis measured 

 several of them carefully, and found that the stature of the greater 

 part was from 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet. The height of the Patago- 

 nians was also measured with great accuracy by the Spanish officers 

 in 1785 and 1786 : they found the common height to be from 64 to 

 7 feet, and the highest was 7 feet 1J inch- 

 It was once supposed that a nation of white dwarfs existed in the 

 interior of Madagascar, called Quimos or Kimos, with very long arms, 

 but the report is now believed to be perfectly fabulous, and the only 

 fact adduced in support of it was that the Count de Modave, the 

 governor of the French settlement at Fort Dauphin, purchased a 

 female slave of light colour, about 34 feet high, with long arms reaching 

 to her knees. Blumenbach thinks that this was merely a mal-formed 

 individual. From these and similar observations we may conclude 

 that there is no truth in the existence of giants or dwarfs, except in 

 peculiar individual instances ; at any rate, as Dr. Pritchard observes 

 (' History of Mankind '), " every variety of stature which has been 

 found to occur, as the general character of a whole race, is frequently 

 surpassed by individual examples among the inhabitants of the same 

 country." 



There is no fixed law by which the human stature can invariably 

 be determined, though there U an average standard from which the 

 deviations either way are not very considerable. The human race 

 varies mostly in height from 44 feet to a little more than 6 feet, 

 though men are occasionally met with of a much greater stature. 

 Taking away the disposition to deal in the marvellous, we may pro- 

 bably assert that no man ever existed of the height of more than 8 or 

 9 feet. This may be supposed from what we see at present, and 

 from the deviations which occur in the ordinary course of nature in 

 animals. A skeleton was dug up some years ago on the site of a 

 Roman camp near St. Albans, beside an urn inscribed ' Marcus Anto- 

 ninus.' Mr. Chewlden, who ban described it in the ' Philosophical 

 Transactions' (No. 883), judged that it was 8 feet in height Goliath, 

 Og (king of Bason), Maximinus the emperor, and others mentioned in 

 acred and profane history, were also probably very tall men, whose 

 height baa been magnified, but who were no bigger than some now 

 occasionally met with. There are many authentic instances of men 

 who have much exceeded the ordinary height, which have occurred 

 in oar own time* : one of the King of Prussia's gigantic guards, a 

 Swede, measured 84 feet ; and a yeoman of the Duke John Frederick, 

 at Brunswick-Hanover, waa of the same height (Haller, ' Element. 

 Phy.,' lib. xxx. sec. 1. Several Irishmen, measuring from 7 to 8 feet 

 and upwards, have been exhibited in this country; the most cele- 

 brated, whose skeleton in in the museum of the College of Surgeons 

 in London, was Charles Byrne, who went by the name of O'Brien : he 

 died at the age of 22, in 1783, and measured 8 feet 4 inches. The 

 skeleton it 8 feet in height Many examples of dwarfs might al*o be 

 mentioned, Buffon says that Bebe, the dwarf of Stanislaus, king of 

 Poland, was 23 inches (French) high, and well-proportioned : he died at 

 23. But of numerous other instances on record most seem to have been 

 rick ctty and diseased individuals. Thus, in the skeleton in the museum 

 of the College of Surgeons, of Madlle. Crachami, the Sicilian .1 wnrf, who 

 died at the age of 10 years, and which is only 20 inches in height, the 

 bones appear to have undergone hardly any change after birth. There 

 seems to have hem a complete arrest of development, the epiphyses 

 of the bones remaining unossified. One of the most perfect specimens 



of a dwarf was the individual exhibited in London under the name of 

 General Tom Thumb, He was 28 inches in height, and bis head mid 

 limb* were remarkably well proportioned. Two dwarfs from S 

 America were exhibited in London in 1853, and called Aztecs. Th.ir 

 beads were small in proportion to their bodies. They exhibit- 

 deficiency of intellect indicated by the small development of tlu-ir 

 brains. 



We may remark that the ordinary size of man is particularly well 

 adapted to his wants and uses ; and we generally observe that those 

 individuals who deviate greatly from the common statul.u.l, i-iilu-r 

 one way or the other, are neither well-proportioned nor healthy. The 

 head in giants is commonly too small for the rest of the body, ami in 

 dwarfs too large. 



Both giant* and dwarfs have frequently offspring of similar stature 

 to their own, so that a race of men might possibly arise of extraordi- 

 nary xmallness or gigantic size. Of the propagation of giants we have 

 an experimental proof in a fact related by Dr. J. R. Forstcr (' Obser- 

 vations on a Voyage Round the World '). It is well known that the 

 king of Prussia had a corps of gigantic guards, consisting of the tallest 

 men who could be drawn together from all quarters. A regiment of 

 these huge men was stationed during fifty years at Potsdam. "A 

 great number of the present inhabitants of that place," says Forster, 

 " are of very high stature, which is more especially striking in the 

 numerous gigantic figures of women. This certainly is owing to the 

 connexions and intermarriages of those tall men with the females of 

 that town." Dr. Pritchard is of opinion that peculiarities of stature 

 may in some measure be owing to peculiarities of climate. In his 

 ' History of Mankind ' (vol. ii. ), he observes, that " there are many nations 

 of very considerable stature in South America. The Patagouiaus are 

 the most remarkable example, but nearly all the nations of this great 

 country, though distinct from each other in language, manners, and 

 descent, are taller and stouter than the average standard of the 

 human species. . . In Ireland men of uncommon stature are often 

 seen, and even a gigantic form and stature occur there much more 

 frequently than in this island : yet all the British Isles derived their 

 stock of inhabitant) from the same sources. We can hardly avoid 

 the conclusion that there must be some peculiarity iu Ireland which 

 gives rise to these phenomena." Again : " The tall, lank, gaunt, and 

 otherwise remarkable figures of the Virginians and men of Carolina 

 are strikingly different from those of the short, plump, round-faced 

 farmers in England, who are of the same race." Lawrence (' Lectures 

 on Man') thinks that the source of the deviations from the ordinary 

 stature in man is entirely in the breed, and that they are quite 

 independent of external influences. In endeavouring to account for 

 the diversities of stature which occur we must make an observation 

 which is equally applicable to differences of colour, features, and 

 other particulars, in which individuals and particular races dill, i- 

 from each other, namely, that the law of resemblance between parents 

 and offspring which preserves species, and maintains uniformity in 

 the living part of creation, suffers occasional and rare exceptions ; but 

 that under certain circumstances an offspring is produced with new 

 properties different from those of the progenitors. 



GIANTS' CAUSEWAY, a remarkable columnar basaltic forma- 

 tion on the northern coast of the county of Antrim, in Ireland, 

 situated about midway between the towns of Ballycastle and 

 Coleraine. 



The trap district with which this formation is connected occupies 

 almost the whole of the county of Antrim, and a considerable portion 

 of the eastern part of Londonderry, comprehending an area of about 

 800 square miles on both sides of the valley of the Bann. The surface 

 rises gradually from the channel of this river till it attains a consi- 

 derable elevation on each side, when it breaks down iu precipitous 

 escarpments, sloping abruptly to the primitive district of London- 

 derry on the west, and overhanging the coast on the east and north 

 in a series of striking elevations commencing near Belfast, and termi- 

 nating west of the embouchure of the Bann. Throughout this area 

 the basalt is found capping all the eminences, and constituting the 

 general super-stratum in beds of an average thickness of about 500 

 feet Beneath the basalt occurs a series of secondary formations 

 peculiar to this area, which has led to the supposition that they may 

 nave been elsewhere removed by some denuding force, "to whirl,, 

 in this quarter alone, an effectual resistance was opposed by the 

 firm and massive super-stratum of basalt which covered and pro- 

 tected them." (Rev. W. Conybeare, in 'Trans. Geological Soc.,' 

 vol. iii. p. 127.) 



These formations, which are similar to those underlaid by the 

 coal-measures of the south and east of England, consist, in descending 

 order, of thick beds of indurated chalk, the white limestone of 

 Antrim, succeeded (unless where the series is broken, as it frequently 

 is, by the superior stratum extending beyond the outgoings of the 

 inferior, as at Fair-head, where the basalt rests immediately upon the 

 coal-measures), by mulatto or green sandstone reposing on blue 

 argillaceous limestone, which again rests on the red-sandstone of the 

 coal-formation, which appears to underlie the greater part of the 

 basaltic tract 



The mass of basalt is considerably thicker towards the northern 

 extremity of the area, and it U here chiefly that the series of columnar 

 formations occur. There are three distinct beds of such formations, 



