giant nineteen feet high. I have gone through the treatises of Cassanion, and all those memoirs, pamphlets, answers, and rejoinders published respecting the skeleton of Teutobochus, the invader of Gaul, dug out of a sandpit in the Dauphiné, in 1613. In the eighteenth century I would have stood up for Scheuchzer’s pre-adamite man against Peter Campet. I have perused a writing, entitled Gigan —”
Here my uncle’s unfortunate infirmity met him—that of being unable in public to pronounce hard words.
“The pamphlet entitled Gigan —”
He could get no further.
“ Giganteo —”
It was not to be done. The unlucky word would not come out. At the Johannæum there would have been a laugh.
“ Gigantosteologie ,” at last the Professor burst out, between two words which I shall not record here.
Then rushing on with renewed vigour, and with great animation:
“Yes, gentlemen, I know all these things, and more. I know that Cuvier and Blumenbach have recognised in these bones nothing more remarkable than the bones of the mammoth and other mammals of the post-tertiary period. But in the presence of this specimen to doubt would be to insult science. There stands the body! You may see it, touch it. It is not a mere skeleton; it is an entire body, preserved for a purely anthropological end and purpose.”
I was good enough not to contradict this startling assertion.
“If I could only wash it in a solution of sulphuric acid,” pursued my uncle, “I should be able to clear it from all the earthy particles and the