ON THE FOSSIL BONES OF THE ELEPHANT OF THE RUSSIANS. 239 



Fallopius mentions some from Puzzuolo *, and Bonani relates that 

 in 169S an inundation laid bare a tusk twelve palms long, in the 

 same province f. Micheli brought away from Pouille, some pieces of 

 ivory exhumed in 1715, near San Vetterrini J. 



To the same place may be referred the two supposed giants whose 

 history is repeated in all the gigantologies, namely, that discovered 

 in the fourteenth century at Trapani in Sicily, of which Boccassio 

 speaks, and which was of course supposed to be Polyphemus §, and 

 that found in the neighbourhood of Palermo in the sixteenth cen- 

 tury, mentioned by Fasellus ||, but the size of the former is greatly 

 exaggerated, for they ascribe to it a length of three hundred feet ; 

 and Kircher, who visited the cavern where it was supposed to have 

 been found, asserts in positive terms, that it was not more than 

 thirty feet in height. 



This same Fasellus points out several other places in Sicily, where 

 bones of giants were exhumed, as for instance at Melilli, between 

 Leontium and Syracuse, at Petralia, &c. 



Mongitorei gives similar accounts ^[, as does also Valguarnera **, 

 but we cannot with safety refer them ail to elephants, as these 

 writers do not furnish us with exact measurements, and we know 

 from personal inspection, that the lairs that yield those bones in 

 Sicily contain a quantity of those of other animals. 



A circumstance, however, which makes it more than probable that 

 a part of these pretended giants have owed their origin to the bones 

 of elephants is this, that the latter are found, according to the testi- 

 mony of the Marquis of Vintimille, the historian of Sicily, cited by 

 Kircher ff, near the sea, between Palermo and Trapani, and in the 

 territory 7 of the ancient Solois, which as well as Palermo was a Car- 

 thaginian colony. 



Kircher, moreover, notices the accounts of two others, Sicilian 

 giants, almost all whose bones, as is invariably the case, had been 

 consumed, except the teeth J J. 



Targioni quotes an ancient letter of the Chevalier Folchi, written 

 in 1589 §§, which makes mention of the tooth of a supposed giant 

 found with petrified sharks' teeth near Syracuse ||j|. As for Greece, the 

 miserable thraldom under which she groans has not afforded an oppor- 

 tunity of acquiring correct information on the fossils she produces ; 

 but the latter have given rise to accounts of giants, both in ancient 



* De Metallic, last chapter. 



-f- Mus. Kircher, p. 199. 



t Targioni Tozzetti's Travels in Tuscany, vol. viii. p. 413. 



§ De Genealogia Deoruin, lib iv, e. Ixviii. 



i| Fasellus, Decad. i, book i, chap. iv. 



^ Mongitore on the Memorabilia of Sicily, in Brocchi's Subapcnnine Shells, vol. i, 

 p. 186. 



** Valguarnera on the Origin and Antiquity of Panormo, in Fabius Columella, De 

 Glossopetris, p. 34. 



tt Kircher on the Subterranean World, book viii, c. iv. 



XX Idem. Ibid. 



§§ Travels in Tuscany, vol. viii, p. 414. 



I! || About three years ago, they discovered in the caverns in the reighbourhood of 

 Palermo, bones of elephants mixed with those of a species of half hippopotamus, of 

 ruminants, bears, &c. (Laur.) 



