DIFFERENCES OF STATURE. 871 



Together with others, he mentions those dug'up at Lucerne, 

 in the sixteenth century, and still preserved tliere. Blu- 

 MENBACH found thcsc, on the first view, to be elephants' 

 bones. Felix Plater, an excellent physician and anato- 

 mist of his time, after carefully examining and measuring 

 these bones, declared that they belonged to a human giant 

 of seventeen feet ; and had a drawing made of this skele- 

 ton, according to his opinion of its dimensions; which draw- 

 ing is still preserved in the Jesuits' College at Lucerne f. 



That men in general were taller in the early ages of the 

 world than at present, or that examples of very tall men 

 were then more frequent than now, has been asserted with- 

 out any proof. The remains of human bones, and particu- 

 larly the teeth, which are unchanged in the most ancient urns 

 and burial-places, the mummies, and the sarcophagus of the 

 great pyramid of Egypt, demonstrate this point clearly ; 

 and every fact which we can collect, from ancient works 

 of art, from armour, as helmets and breast-plates, or from 

 buildings designed for the abode and accommodation of 

 men, concurs in strengthening the proof. Blumenbach 

 has the skull and bones of an old person taken out of a 

 burial-place of the most remote antiquity of Denmark (ex 

 antiquissimo tumulo Cimbrico), and corresponding in size 

 to the modern standard. That we cannot have degenerated 

 in consequence of the habits of civilized society is clear, be- 

 cause the individuals of nations living in a way so different 

 from us, as the native Americans, Africans, and South Sea 

 Islanders, &c. do not exceed us in stature. Indeed, it has 

 been generally observed of these races, that they are shorter 

 than the Europeans. 



In mentioning individuals who have exceeded the ordi- 

 nary height, it is necessary to confine ourselves, in order to 

 avoid what may be fabulous or exaggerated, to instances in 

 our own times. One of the King of Prussia's gigantic 

 guards, a Swede, measured 8| feet ; and a yeoman of the 

 Duke John Frederic, at Brunswick Hanover, was of the 



* Dc G. IT. Far. IVnf. p. 251. 

 BB 2 



