Note 1079 — Chapter VII

Mr. Geoffroy Saint Hilaire (Anomalies de l'Organisation, vol. i. pp. 121–127) has collected some evidence respecting the opinions formerly held on these subjects. Among other instances, he mentions a learned man named Henrion, an academician, and, I suppose, a theologian, who in 1718 published a work, in which ‘il assignait à Adam cent vingt-trois pieds neuf pouces;’ Noah being twenty feet shorter, and so on. The bones of elephants were sometimes taken for giants: see a pleasant circumstance in Cuvier, Hist. des Sciences, part ii. p. 43.