Note 44 — A COMMENTARY UPON THE PRECEDING OBJECTS OF INQUIRY: (continued 2)

It was the custom of the ancients to exhibit in the same sculpture in Bas relief, men of very different dimensions, of making kings and conquerors gigantic in stature, while their subjects and vassals were represented as only a fourth or fifth part of their size. This must have given origin to the fable of Giants and Pigmies; while a belief in such tales has been supported by the discovery of gigantic bones, which have through ignorance been received as human remains, but which, as Sir Hans Sloane in an interesting paper in the Philosophical Transactions (No. 404, p. 497,) very truly observes, are nothing more than the bones and teeth of Elephants or Whales: thus, says he, the fore fin of a whale, stripped of its web and skin, was not long since publicly shewn for the bones of a giant’s hand. The same explanation applies to those pretended skeletons of Giants of 12, 20, and 30 cubits high, as mentioned by Philostratus. The skeleton of 46 cubits which, according to Pliny (Hist. Nat. Lib. vii. c. 16,) was found in the cavity of a mountain in Crete, upon its overthrow by an earthquake. The skeleton 60 cubits high which Strabo (Lib. 17) says was found near Tangis (Tangier) in Mauritania, and supposed to be that of Antæus. To which list maybe added the skeleton of Asterius, son of Anactes—10 cubits. That of Orestes, dug up by special command of the Oracle, 7 cubits, &c. &c.