370 DIFFERENCES OF STATURE. 



mankind have undergone a physical as well moral degene- 

 racy since their first formation, have led to a very common 

 belief that the human stature in general is at this period less 

 than it was in remote ages *. We are warranted in suspect- 

 ing the accounts of such great elevation above the ordinary 

 stature in the human species, by observing that nature, 

 within the time of v/liich we have any authentic records, 

 exhibits no such disproportions in other species. We find, 

 too, that the height of these giants is reduced, as we ap- 

 proach modern times, to what we have opportunities of 

 observing now; so that we may probably affirm, that no 

 sufliciently authenticated example can be adduced of a man 

 higher than eight or nine feet. 



The large bones, on which the notions about giants have 

 been in many instances founded, have been discovered, by 

 the accurate examinations of modern science, to belong to 

 extinct species of animals of jtlie elephant and other allied 

 kinds. Of the loose and unphllosophical manner, in which 

 these matters have generally been inquired into, we have 

 a specimen in the supposed bones of a barbarian king. 

 Kabicot, an anatomist of some celebrity, in a work, entitled 

 Gigautosteologia, describes some huge bones found near the 

 ruins of the castle of Chaumont in Dauphiny, in a sepul- 

 chre, over which was a grey stone, inscribed " Teutoboc- 

 CHUS Rex." This skeleton, he says, was twenty -five feet 

 and a half high, and ten feet broad at the shoulders. Rio- 

 LAN, in his Gigantomachia, disputes this measurement, and 

 ailftrms that the bones belong to tlie elephant. In the long 

 controversy which ensued, it never occurred to either of the 

 learned disputants to describe or represent the bones exactly. 

 It is surprising that Buffon should have figured and 

 described the fossil bones of large animals as remains 

 of human giants, in the supplement f of his classical work. 



* The notion of diminished stature and strength seems to have been just as 

 prevalent in ancient times as at present. Plixy observes of the human 

 height, " Cuncto mortalium generi niinorcm indies fieri ;"' vii. 16. A most 

 alarming prospect, if it had been wtll founded. Homer more than once 

 makes a \eTy disparaging comparison of his own degenerate cotemporaries 

 to (he powerful heroes of the Trojan -\var. + Tom. v. 



