GIANT. 
nieti, at leaft not without contradiding the Holy Scrip¬ 
tures. Tlie Ifraelites who traverfed tlie Holy Land, told 
their brethren, that they had teen Giants in this country 
ot Anak’s race, unniealurably large, as noticed above, 
Nuni. xiii. 33. Mofes fpeaks of Og the king of Bafan’s 
bed, which was nine cubits long, and four wide; that 
is, fi;'t?en feet four inches and a half long, Deut. iii. it. 
Goliah was fix cubits and a fpan in height; that is to 
fay, ten feet feven inches, iSrtw.xvii.4. Thefe forts 
of Giants were ftill common in Jofliua’s and David’s 
times, when the life of men was already fo much (hort- 
ened, and, as may be prefumed, the fizc and flrengtli of 
human bodies were very much diminithed. Betides the 
Giants mentioned in Scripture, feveral hiftorians make 
mention of Giants ; as Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, 
Piiny, Homer, Plutarch, See. Cruden. 
The excellent Derham, in his note on b. 5. c. 4. of 
his admirable work entitled “ Phytico-Theology,” after 
having referred to examples of uncommon ftature in 
more early times, adds, “Jni684, I inytelf meafured 
an Irith youth, faid to be not nineteen years old, who 
was feven feet and near eight inches; and, in 1697, a 
woutan who was feven feet three inches in height.” 
Captain Wai.lis, one of thofe perfevering navigators 
rotind the world, to whom we are indebted for enlarge¬ 
ment of knowledge, gives us this account of the natives 
of Patagonia : “ As I had two meafuring rods with me, 
we went round and meal tired thofe that appeared to be 
tailed among them. One of thefe was tix feet feven 
inches liigh ; feveral more were fix feet five, and fix feet 
fix inches.” Hawkefworth'i Fnyages, vol. i. 374. 
Patrick Cotter, commonly called O’Brien, the Irifii 
giant, who died in September lalf (1806), was eight feet 
and a Italf high ; and there is now ihow n in London a 
youth about the age of that mentioned by Derham, and 
^as tall. 
In a memoir read before the Academy of Sciences at 
Rouen, M. Le Cat, the anatomical profelfor, gave the 
following account of giants that are faid to have exified 
in different ages: “ Profane hiltorians have given feven 
feet of height to Hercules their firll: hero; and in our 
days we have feen men eight feet high. The giant who 
was lliown in Rouen, in 1735, meafured eiglit feet fome 
inches. The emperor Maximin was of that lize ; Slien- 
kius and Platerus, phyficians of the lad century, faw 
feveral of that ftature ; and Goropius faw a girl who was 
ten feet high. The body of Oreftes, according to the 
Greeks, was eleven feet and a half; the giant Galbara, 
brought from Arabia to Rome under Claudius Caefar, 
was near ten feet; and the bones of Secondilla and 
Pufio, keepers of the gardens of Salluft, were but fix 
inches fhorter. Funnam, a Scotfman, who lived in the 
time of Eugene II. king of Scotland, meafured eleven 
feet and a half; and Jacob le Maire, in his voyage to 
the ftraits of Magellan, reports, that on the 17th of De¬ 
cember, 1615, they found at Port Defire feveral graves 
covered with ftones; and having the curiofity to remove 
the llones, they dilcovered human (keletons of ten and 
eleven feet long. The chevalier Scory, in his voyage 
to the Peak of Teneriffe, fays, that they found in one of 
the fepulchral caverns of that mountain the head of a 
Guanche which had eighty teeth, and that the' body was 
not lets than fifteen feet long. The giant Ferragus, flain 
by Orlando nephew of Charlemagne, was eighteen feet 
high. Rioland, a celebrated anatomift, who wrote in 
1614, lays, that I’ome years before there was to be feen 
in the fuburbs of St. Germain, the tomb of the giant 
llore-, who was twenty feet high. In Rouen, in 1509, 
in digging in the ditches hear the Dominicans, t.hey 
found a (lone tomb containing a (keleton whole Ikull 
held a bulhel of corn, and whofe fliin-bone reached up 
to the girdle of the tailed: man there, being about four 
feet long, and confequently the body mult have been 
feventeen or eighteen feet high. Upon the tomb was a 
plate of copper, whereon was engraved, ‘In this tomb 
i 
£47 
lies the noble and puilTant lord, the chevalier Ricon de 
Vallemont, and liis bones.’ Platerus, a famous phyfi- 
tian, declares, that he faw at Lucerne the true human 
bones of a fubjedt which mud have been at leaf! nineteen 
leet high. Valence in Dauphine boaftsof polleffing the 
bones of the giant Bucart, tyrant of the Vivarais, who 
was flain by an arrow by the count de Cabillon his vafial. 
The Dominicans had a part of the fiiin-bone, with the 
articulation of the knee, and his figure painted in frefco, 
with an infeription, (howing that this giant was twenty- 
two feet and a half high, and that his bones were found 
in 1705, near the banks of the Morcleri, a little river at 
the foot of the mountain of Crulfol, upon which, tradi¬ 
tion (ays, the giant dwelt. 
“ January ii, 1613, fome mafons digging near the 
ruins of a cafile in Dauphine, in a field which had long 
been called the giant's fdd, at the depth of eighteen feet 
difeovered a brick tomb thirty feet long, twelve feet 
wide, and eight feet high ; on w'hicli was a grey flone, 
with the words Tlicutobochns Rtx, cut thereon. When the 
tomb was opened, they found a human Ikeleton entire, 
twenty-five feet and a half lon^, ten feet wide acrofis 
the Ihoulders, and five feet deep irom the breaft-bone to 
the back. His teeth were about the lize each ot an ox’s 
foot, and hi.s (hin-bone meafured four feet.—Near Ma- 
zarino, in Sicily, in ijid, was found a giant thirty feet 
high 7 his head was the (ize of an hogfiiead, and each of 
his teetli weighed five ounces.—Near Palermo,, in the' 
valley of Mazara, in Sicily, a (keleton of a giant thirty 
feet long was found, in the year 154S ; and another ot 
thirty-three feet higi), in 1550; and many curious per- 
fons have preferved feveral of thefe gigantic bones.—■ 
The Athenians found near their city two famous (kele- 
tons, one of thirty-four and the other of thirty-fix feet 
high.—At Totu, in Bohemia, in 758, was found a fke- 
leton,. the head of wliich could fcarcely be encompafied 
by the arms of two men together, and whole legs, which 
they keep in the cafile of tliat city, were tiventy-lix feet 
long. 'File Ikull of the giant found in Macedonia, Sep¬ 
tember 1691, held 210 pounds of corn. 
“ The celebrated fir Hans Sloane, who treated this 
matter very learnedly, does not doubt thefe facts ; but 
thinks theTones were thofe of elephants, whales, or other 
enormous animals, now perhaps extimit.” 
Rebel Giants, or Gig antes, in pagan mytlioiogy, 
were the Cons of Coelus and Terra. According to Hefiod, 
they (prang from the blood of the wound which Cceliis 
received from his (bn Saturn ; and Hyginus calls them 
fons of Tartarus.and Terra. They are reprefented as men 
of uncommon llature, wdth ftreagth proportioned to their 
gigantic fize. Some of them, as Cottus, Briareus, and 
Gyges, had each fifty heads and one hundred arms, and 
-their lower extremities were ferpents inftead of legs. 
I'hey were of a terrible afpedt, their hair hung difiie. 
veiled about their fiioulders, and their beard was luffered 
to grow uncropped. Pallene and its neighbourhood was 
the place of their relidence. The defeat of the Titans, 
to whom they were nearly related, incenfed them againlf 
Jupiter, and they all confpired to dethrone h.im. Ac¬ 
cordingly they are fabled to have reared Mount Oilit 
upon Pelion, and Olympus upon OfTa ; and trom thence 
to have attacked the gods with huge rocks, fome of 
which fell into the fea and became illands, and others 
fell on the earth and formed mountains, Jupiter fum- 
moned a council of the gods; when being informed that 
it was ncceffary to obtain the alliftance ot fome mortal, 
he by the advice of Pallas called up his fon Hercules; 
and with the aid of this hero he exterminated the giants 
Enceladus, Polybotes, Alcyon, Porphyrion, the two fons 
of Aloeus, Ephialtus, Othus, Eurytus, Clytius,Tythyus, 
Pallas, Hippolitus, Agrius, Thoon, and Typhoij, the laff 
of whom it was more difficult to vanquifii than all the 
others. Jupiter having thus gained a complete viftory, 
he cafi the rebels down to Tartarus, where they were 
to receive the full puniihment of their enormous crimes, 
3 See 
