86 MEMOIRS OF 



land, Holland, Germany, and Italy ; and others 

 M^ere brought to huii, in order that he might be 

 an eye-witness of every thing which he endea- 

 voured to prove. These researches entirely set 

 at rest the question concerning the existence, or, 

 rather, the finding of human fossils. Such re- 

 lics have never, as yet, been discovered ; and 

 the Guadaloupe skeletons, which have been so 

 much talked of, had probably been deposited 

 in that place after shipwreck ; the soil by which 

 they were enveloped being of too recent a form- 

 ation to admit of any idea that they were true 

 fossils, and the positions in which they laid, not 

 allowing of the supposition that they had been 

 purposely interred there. Also, the pretended 

 histories of giants are, in this volume, entirely 

 refuted ; and amusing accounts are there given 

 of the ignorance and credulity which caused 

 them to be so generally circulated ; but on this 

 occasion, as, in fact, all others, M. Cuvier's own 

 words are the best, and he writes as follows: — 

 " The bones of elephants having more resem- 

 blance to those of man than they have to those 

 of other animals, even skilful anatomists have 

 been often tempted to take them for human 

 remains, and this probably occasioned the pre- 

 tended discoveries of the tombs of giants, men- 



