Thus it was said that, in Dauphiny, such a skeleton was found, measuring twenty-five fcct, the head being five feet long, and ten in circumference. That some of these cases were impostures, and some errors, there is no rea son to doubt ; although we may well wonder, not only at the names of the authors on whose assertions they rest, but at the positive and particular manner in which the facts are stated. Monsieur Lc Cat, for one, asserts, that, near Athens, there were found two skeletons, one of which was thirty-six, and the other thirty-four feet high ; that another, measuring thirty feet, was discovered near Paler mu, together with two others, in other parts of Sicily, measuring, the one thirty and the other thirty-six feet. The same author also relates, that another of twenty two feet lung was bound in Spain. Platerus, a physician, who ought to have known better, asserts that he saw a human skeleton of nineteen feet in length, at Lucent ; and M. Le Cat, again, one of the chief collectors in this line, mentions another found at Rouen, the skull of which held a bushel of corn, the tibia bemg four feet long —whence the whole man must have been seventeen feet high. That the ac count may be complete, and no room for incredulity left, he turtm.r says, that on the tomb of this giant was en gra% cd his epitaph and name, " The Chevalier Ricon de Valmont." But we need quote no more, as there can be no reason to doubt that, where these narratives have not been founded in error, they are gross impostures.
We inay now remark, that since the attention of geolo gists has been turned to a rational investigation of the subject of tonsil remains, it appears to claim rather more than a just propertion of their labours. There is no ques tion hut tnat tt fArtns a very important branch of geology ; while in itself it includes more than one department of natural history, to which it belongs, even in a greater de gree than it does to the history of the earth. It is the especial business of the botanist, and still more of the zoologist, to study its details; but the geologist is in dan ger of losing sight of his main objects, when he suffers himself to be engrossed with the details of conchology or comparative anatomy, to the exclusion of what, to him at least, is, or ought to be, the chief pursuit, namely, the con nection of these embalmed memorials of former worlds with the history of the globe, with that of its alluvia, its rocks, and its revolutions.
It is a much more erroneous view of the nature of this study to suppose, with authors of high reputation, that a theory of the earth can be erected with materials that in volve but a small portion of its structure ; and which offer evidence still more limited respecting many of the most important points in the history of its changes, and ha-those of the substances of which it is constructed. We do not
mean. however, to say that it is not essential to know the characters of every animal and vegetable substance now found preserved in the earth. We admit, on the contrary, that it is most essential that they should be described and arranged, and that they should be named according to such systems of natural history as are in use with respect to living objects of the same nature. Such works have been commenced ; and in some departments much pro gress has been made. It is most desirable that they should be perfected, as this constitutes the grammar of these branches of natural history, without which it will always be impossible to convey true descriptions of their con nections, relations, or positions, as these bear upon the history of the earth.
But the claims of geology' on this subject are of a dif ferent nature. To the zoologist and the botanist it must always be indebted, however, not only for the names and descriptions of these objects, but for what is of great im portance in the history of the earth. It is essential for this science to determine whether all these buried remains, whether of animals or vegetables, are extinct species; if not, how many of them are so; what are the living ones which correspond to them ; and if there are not corres ponding species, whether there arc corresponding genera, or even analogies of a more remote nature. Or, to state these requisites more fully, it is most important to inquire what progress can be traced, whether with respect to or ganization or other circumstances, front those which ap pear most distant in point of time, to those which are most recent; what inferences can be drawn relating to the places the climates, or the fluids, which they inhabited when alive ; whether there has been a progressive in crease in the numbers of created genera or species; or whether there are reasons for supposing that there has been a destruction of old, and an entire renovation of new races.
In these, and in many other questions on which we need not here dwell, wide field of interesting inquiry is open to the geologist, as well as to the zoologist and botanist ; yet neither of these can advance far without the assistance of the other. It is the business of the philoso pher, more particularly of the philosophical geologist, not to rest content with the details of these subjects; not to imagine that his sole duty is to become acquainted with the characters, he anatomy, description, or name, of these interesting bodies ; but to make use of them for the pur pose of extending the boundaries of his own science; for evidences respecting the changes of the globe, or the true nature of particular phenomena.