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, proceeded 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 subject 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 support 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 may be said, monstrous productions, which deviate from the natural order; and it would be therefore unreasonable to deny the existence of men of a very gigantic stature, because 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, although thick, are very short.
