a person of extraordinary bulk and stature.

The romances of all ages have furnished us with so many extravagant accounts of giants of incredible bulk and strength, that the existence of such people is now generally disbelieved. It is commonly thought, that the stature of men hath been the same in all ages; and some have even pretended to demonstrate the impossibility of the existence of giants mathematically. Of these our countryman McLaurin hath been the most explicit. "In general (says he) it will easily appear, that the efforts tending to destroy the cohesion of beams arising from their own gravity only, increase in the quadruplicate ratio of their lengths; but that the opposite efforts tending to preserve their cohesion, increase only in the triplicate proportion of the same lengths. From which it follows, that the greater beams must be in greater danger of breaking than the lesser familiar ones; and that though a lesser beam may be firm and secure, yet a greater familiar one may be made so long, that it will necessarily break by its own weight. Hence Galileo judiciously concludes, that what appears very firm, and succeeds very well in models, may be very weak and infirm, or even fail to pieces by its own weight, when it comes to be executed in large dimensions according to the model. From the same principle he argues, that there are necessary limits in the operations of nature and art, which they cannot surpass in magnitude. Were trees of a very enormous size, their branches would fall by their own weight. Large animals have not strength in proportion to their size; and if there were any land animals much larger than those we know, they could hardly move, and would be perpetually subject to the most dangerous accidents. As to the animals of the sea, indeed the case is different; for the gravity of the water in a great manner sustains those animals; and in fact these are known sometimes to be vastly larger than the greatest land animals. Nor does it avail against this doctrine to tell us, that bones have sometimes been found which were supposed to have belonged to giants of immense size; such as the skeletons mentioned by Strabo and Pliny, the former of which was 60 cubits high, and the latter 46: for naturalists have concluded on just grounds, that in some cases these bones had belonged to elephants; and that the larger ones were bones of whales, which had been brought to the places where they were found by the revolutions of nature that have happened in past times. Though it must be owned, that there appears no reason why there may not have been men who have exceeded by some feet in height the tallest we have seen."

It will easily be seen, that arguments of this kind can never be conclusive; because, along with an increase of stature in any animal, we must always suppose a proportional increase in the cohesion of the parts of its body. Large works sometimes fail when constructed on the plan of models, because the cohesion of the materials whereof the model is made, and of the large work, are the same; but a difference in this respect will produce a very remarkable difference in the ultimate result. Thus, suppose a model is made of firwood, the model may be strong and firm enough; but a large work made also of fir, when executed according to the plan of the model, may be so weak that it will fall to pieces by its own weight. If, however, we make use of iron for the large work instead of fir, the whole will be sufficiently strong, even though made exactly according to the plan of the model. The like may be said with regard to large and small animals. If we could find an animal whose bones exceeded in hardness and strength the bones of other animals as much as iron exceeds fir, such an animal might be of a monstrous size, and yet be exceedingly strong. In like manner, if we suppose the flesh and bones of a giant to be greatly superior in hardness and strength to the bones of other men, the great size of his body will be no objection at all to his strength. The whole of the matter therefore concerning the existence of giants must rest on the credibility of the accounts we have from those who pretend to have seen them, and not on any arguments drawn à priori.

In the Scripture we are told of giants, who were produced from the marriages of the sons of God with the daughters of men. This passage indeed has been differently interpreted, so as to render it doubtful whether the word translated giants does there imply any extraordinary stature. In other parts of Scripture, however, giants, with their dimensions, are mentioned in such a manner that we cannot possibly doubt; as in the case of Og king of Bashan, and Goliath. In a memoir read before the Academy of Sciences at Rouen, M. Le Cat gives the following account of giants that are said to have existed in different ages.

"Profane historians have given seven feet of height Giant. to Hercules their first hero; and in our days we have seen men eight feet high. The giant who was shewn in Rouen in 1735, measured eight feet some inches. The emperor Maximian was of that size; Shenkius and Platerus, physicians of the last century, saw several of that stature; and Goropius saw a girl who was ten feet high.—The body of Orettes, according to the Greeks, was eleven feet and a half; the giant Galbara, brought from Arabia to Rome under Claudius Caesar, was near ten feet; and the bones of Secondilla and Pusio, keepers of the gardens of Sallust, were but fix inches shorter. Funnam, a Scotsman, who lived in the time of Eugene II. king of Scotland, measured eleven feet and a half; and Jacob le Maire, in his voyage to the Straits of Magellan, reports, that on the 17th of December 1615, they found at Port Desire several graves covered with stones; and having the curiosity to remove the stones, they discovered human skeletons of ten and eleven feet long. The chevalier Scory, in his voyage to the peak of Teneriffe, says, that they found in one of the sepulchral caverns of that mountain the head of a Guanche which had 80 teeth, and that the body was not less than 15 feet long. The giant Ferragus, slain by Orlando nephew of Charlemagne, was 18 feet high. Rioland, a celebrated anatomist, who wrote in 1614, says, that some years before there was to be seen in the suburbs of St Germain the tomb of the giant Ioret, who was 20 feet high. In Rouen, in 1599, in digging in the ditches near the Dominicans, they found a stone tomb containing a skeleton whose skull held a bushel of corn, and whose thin bone reached up to the girdle of the tallest man there, being about four feet long, and consequently the body must have been 17 or 18 feet high. Upon the tomb was a plate of copper, whereon was engraved, "In this tomb lies the noble and puissant lord, the chevalier Ricon de Vallemont, and his bones." Platerus, a famous physician, declares, that he saw at Lucerne the true human bones of a subject which must have been at least 19 feet high. Valence in Dauphiné boasts of possessing the bones of the giant Bucart, tyrant of the Vivarais, who was slain with an arrow by the count de Cabillon his vassal. The Dominicans had a part of the thin bone, with the articulation of the knee, and his figure painted in fresco, with an inscription, showing that this giant was 22 feet and a half high, and that his bones were found in 1705, near the banks of the Morderi, a little river at the foot of the mountain of Crussol, upon which (tradition says) the giant dwelt.

"January 11, 1613, some masons digging near the ruins of a castle in Dauphiné, in a field which (by tradition) had long been called the giant's field, at the depth of 18 feet discovered a brick tomb 30 feet long, 12 feet wide, and 8 feet high; on which was a gray stone, with the words Thentobochus Rex cut thereon. When the tomb was opened, they found a human skeleton entire, 25 feet and a half long, 10 feet wide across the shoulders, and five feet deep from the breast bone to the back. His teeth were about the size each of an ox's foot, and his thin bone measured four feet.—Near Mazarino, in Sicily, in 1516, was found a giant 30 feet high; his head was the size of an hog's head, and each of his teeth weighed five ounces. Near Palermo, in the valley of Mazara, in Sicily, a skeleton of a giant 30 feet long was found, in the year 1548; and another of 33 feet high, in 1550; and many curious persons have preserved several of these gigantic bones.

"The Athenians found near their city two famous skeletons, one of 34 and the other of 36 feet high.

"At Totu, in Bohemia, in 738, was found a skeleton, the head of which could scarce be encompassed by the arms of two men together, and whose legs, which they still keep in the castle of that city, were 26 feet long. The skull of the giant found in Macedonia, September 1601, held 210 pounds of corn.

"The celebrated Sir Hans Sloane, who treated this matter very learnedly, does not doubt these facts; but thinks the bones were those of elephants, whales, or other enormous animals.

"Elephants bones may be shewn for those of giants; but they can never impose on connoisseurs. Whales, which, by their immense bulk, are more proper to be substituted for the largest giants, have neither arms nor legs; and the head of that animal hath not the least resemblance to that of a man. If it be true, therefore, that a great number of the gigantic bones which we have mentioned have been seen by anatomists, and by them have been reputed real human bones, the existence of giants is proved."

With regard to the credibility of all or any of these accounts, it is difficult to determine anything. If, in any castle of Bohemia, the bones of a man's leg 26 feet in length are preserved, we have indeed a decisive proof of the existence of a giant, in comparison of whom most others would be but pigmies. Nor indeed could these bones be supposed to belong to an elephant: for an elephant itself would but be a dwarf in comparison of such an enormous monster. But if these bones were really kept in any part of Bohemia, it seems strange that they have not been frequently visited, and particular descriptions of them given by the learned who have travelled into that country. It is certain, however, that there have been nations of men considerably exceeding the common stature. Thus, all the Roman historians inform us, that the Gauls and Germans exceeded the Italians in size; and it appears that the Italians in those days were of much the same stature with the people of the present age. Among these northern nations, it is also probable, that there would be as great differences in stature as there are among the present race of men. If that can be allowed, we may easily believe that some of the barbarians might be called giants, without any great impropriety. Of this superiority of size, indeed, the historian Florus gives a notable instance in Teutobochus, above mentioned, king of the Teutones: who being defeated and taken prisoner by Marius, was carried in triumph before him at Rome, when his head reached above the trophies that were carried in the same procession.

But whether these accounts are credited or not, we are very certain, that the stature of the human body is by no means absolutely fixed. We ourselves are a kind of giants in comparison of the Laplanders; nor are these the most diminutive people to be found upon the earth. The Abbé la Chappe, in his journey into Siberia in order to observe the last transit of Venus, passed through a village inhabited by people called Wotacks, neither men nor women of whom were above four feet high. The accounts of the Patagonians also, which cannot be entirely discredited, render it very probable, that somewhere in South America there is a race of people very considerably exceeding the common size of mankind, and consequently that we cannot altogether discredit the relations of giants handed down to us by ancient authors; though what degree of credit we ought to give them is not easy to be determined. See PATAGONIA.

REBEL Giants, in ancient mythology, were the sons of Coelus and Terra. According to Hesiod, they sprang from the blood of the wound which Coelus received from his son Saturn, and Hyginus calls them sons of Tartarus and Terra. They are represented as men of uncommon stature, with strength proportioned to their gigantic size. Some of them, as Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges, had each 50 heads and 100 arms, and serpents instead of legs. They were of a terrible aspect, their hair hung loose about their shoulders, and their beard was suffered to grow unmolested. Pallene and its neighbourhood was the place of their residence. The defeat of the Titans, to whom they were nearly related, incensed them against Jupiter, and they all conspired to dethrone him. Accordingly they reared Mount Olfa upon Pelion, and Olympus upon Olfa; and from thence attacked the gods with huge rocks, some of which fell into the sea and became islands, and others fell on the earth and formed mountains. Jupiter summoned a council of the gods; when being informed that it was necessary to obtain the assistance of some mortal, he by the advice of Pallas called up his son Hercules; and with the aid of this hero he exterminated the giants Enceladus, Polybotes, Alcyon, Porphyron, the two sons of Alceus, Ephialtes, Othos, Eurytus, Clytius, Tithys, Pallas, Hippolitus, Agrius, Thoon, and Typhon; the last of whom it was more difficult to vanquish than all the others. Jupiter having thus gained a complete victory, cast the rebels down to Tartarus, where they were to receive the full punishment of their enormous crimes: according to the accounts of some of the poets, he buried them alive under Mount Aetna and different islands.