54 



ANTHROPOLOGY. 



described, and whose stature has been estimated at from nine 

 to thirteen feet, were the descendants of those formidable 

 giants, who, having landed at the point of St. Helena, pro- 

 ceeded to the Magellanic land, propagating their species. 



For these reasons, it is not inexpedient that we who inhabit 

 the part of the globe which, in preceding ages, was peopled 

 with giants, should exercise our pen in the solution of the 

 problem on their existence. As, however, a subje6t which 

 has been elucidated by Jaucourt, Sir Hans Sloane, BufFon, 

 Haller, Torrubia, Daubenton, &c. cannot be treated without 

 a sufficient number of new testimonies, to be adduced in sup- 

 port of the ideas and conceptions which require time to be 

 duly weighed and examined, not to deprive our readers, in 

 the interim, of the pleasure afforded by the marvellous, we 



sequently, a skeleton of twenty-five feet ought not to have, at the shoulders, a 

 breadth of more than five feet, three inches. Now, a breadth of ten feet supposes 

 a giant fifty feet in height." We shall not undertake to justify Habicot's relation ; 

 but it appears to us, that the argument which is opposed to him has little or no weight. 

 In giants, as well as in dwarfs, that skilful and beautiful symmetry which Nature 

 displays in the rest of her works, is not to be sought. They are varieties, or, it ma'y 

 be said, monstrous produ(Stions, which deviate from the natural order ; and it would 

 be therefore unreasonable to deny the existence of men of a very gigantic stature, be- 

 cause they do not observe a proportion in their limbs. If the mode of reasoning 

 adopted by Daubenton were to be followed, it might likewise be said that the relation 

 of Basilio Huaylas, in this article, is not founded in truth, on this account, that 

 the three feet, or nearly, given to the breadth of his shoulders, do not correspond 

 with seven feet in height, but rather with twelve. Again, if the measures were to 

 be deduced from his hands and fingers, he would scarcely be allowed a height of 

 from five to five feet and a half, since neither does the palm of the hand correspond 

 with the length of the arm, nor still less the fingers, which, althowgh thick, are 

 very short. 



shall 



