Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 1.djvu/799

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teum, and ro. The narrow leaved autumnal geum with yel- low fpotted flowers, called by fom'e the narrow leaved faxi- frage with fpotted flowers. Tourn. Inft. p. 251.

GEZIRA Cubros, in the materia medica of the antients, a name given to talc, by Avifenna, Serapio and others. Thcfe authors do not give any explication of what fort of lubftance they mean by this name, but feem to fuppofe it a thing uuiverfally known, and only give a lift of its quali- ties. We find by others, that the name talc is an ^Egyp- tian, or Perflan word, or as fome fay, an Ifmaelitifh one, that is, an Arabian j and that the fubftance meant by it was that kind of terra Samia, or Samian earth called after from its glittering or fparkling quality. The qualities that Avifenna gives to the gezira cubros are the fame indeed that the Greek writers have given to the Samian earth, and the teftimony of Pauli and many others makes for this opinion. It is certain that this name and talc have been ufed as fy- nonymous, and hence it is evident that the talc of the antients and the talc of the moderns were two very different fubftances. Yet the fame Avifenna feems to have alfo known our talc as well as the Samian earth under this name, for he defcribes the flukey or fohacious ftru£hire of the yellow orpiment, and fays that it feems to be yellow talc. He does not mean by this that there was any fuch fubftance as a yellow talc known at this time, but that if talc were yellow it would be like this fine foliacious orpiment. The Greek writers, who lived about the time of Avifenna, arc of opinion that the felenites was the fubftance which they called talc, when they exprelied by it fome other fubftance, and not the terra Samia. But though the felenites be pellucid and flakey, or fo- liacious like talc, it does not poflefs its other virtues or quali- ties, but is as different a fubftance as can be from all the kinds of true, talc.

GHALGHULUWA, in zoology, theCeylonefenameof a fpe- cies of Eaft Indian ferpent, a make of a pale brown, variegated with tranfverfe ftreaks of white, and found among rocks and ftoncs. Ray's Syn. anim. p. 332.

GIALLOLINO, in natural hiftory, a fpecies of yellow ochre ufed in painting, and called in the colour ftiops Naples yel- low. It is a very beautiful earth, of £ bright and elegant yellow, between a gold and faffron colour, and is of a very loofe, fpungy, porous, and fhattery texture. It is remarkably heavy, of a dufty furface, and gritty to the touch ; it breaks eafily between the fingers and ftains the hands. It adheres but flightly to the tongue, and makes a very brifk fermenta- tion with aqua fortis. It is found in fome parts of Italy, particularly about Naples, whence it has its common name. It fometimes lies on the furface of the earth, and in other places is dug at great depths. It is much ufed in painting as a fine ftrong yellow. Hill's Hift. of FofT. p. 56.

GIANT (Cycl.) — Giants Bones, a name too haftily given by the vulgar, to certain bones and parts of fkeletons, of an enormous fize found in England and other places. Of all the numbers of thefe which have been publickly fhewn about as wonders in nature, not one but has proved, on examina- tion, a bone of an elephant, or elfe of a whale ; the firft however is ufually the cafe, as the bones of elephants are much more frequently found buried in the earth, than thofe of the whale. We had not long ago the fore fin of a whale, not foflile, but recent, taken clean from the fkin, and fhewn about London, for the hand of a giant. Sir Hans S'loarie mentions a vertebra of the loin of a whale fent him from Oxfordfhire, where it was dug up under ground, and afterwards ufed for a ftool to fit upon, and vul- garly fuppofed part of a human back bone. Now if the whole fize of the body had been calculated from this piece, the account would have been fuch a fize as would have far exceeded all the fabulous ftories of giants fkeletons, extant in the world.

We want a good comparative anatomy to teach us to avoid being impofed on in this manner, and the vertebra here fpoken of, would then, eafily be known to differ greatly from one of a human fkeleton. The body of the vertebra is con T fiderably larger in proportion, and the whole is much lighter and more porous. The tranfverfe procefTes of it arife from the middle on each fide, the oblique defcending procefles are entirely wanting, and the arch or foramen, which the fpina! marrow palTes through, is made up by the fpinal procefsandthe oblique afcending ones only. The body of the vertebra is very rouch and uneven on each end, and is full of fmall holes and prominences, which receive the holes and emi- nences of a round bone or plate, which anfwers to the epiphyfis in a human vertebra ; whereof there are two be- tween each vertebra joined together by an intermediate ftrong and pretty thick cartilage, probably to facilitate the motion, and particularly the flexion of thefe animals in the fea. Philof. Tranf. N\ 404. p. 500.

There have been many fkeletons found from time to time under ground, which have been called by thofe who have written of them, fkeletons of giants, and fuppofed to be un- deniable arguments of the exiftence of men of this fize, but they are no other than the parts of thefe large animals. Of this kind are doubtlefs the fkeletons of Philoftratus in his 4

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heroics, which are faid to be the bones of men of twelve* twenty, and even thirty cubits high. Pliny tells us of a fkeleton of a giant of forty fix cubits high, found in a mountain of Crete, deftroyed by an earthquake ; and Strabo tells us of a fkeleton of a giant, found near Tingis, now Tangier in Mauritania, which he fays was fixty cubits high, and was fuppofed to be the fkeleton of Anteus. In the year fifteen hundred, we have an account of the fkeleton of Pallas, found in Rome, which was taller than the walls of that city. And Simon Majolus mentions the fkeleton of a giant, found in the banks of a river in England, in the year 1171, the bones of which, he fays, lay all fairly toge- ther, and meafured fifty feet in length. Thefe are all doubt- lefs ftories founded oh the fingle bones and teeth of elephants found in thefe places, which the imagination of the finder placed fo nicely together, and the after-wit of fome body fkilful at calculations, reduced to the fuppofed whole mea- fure of the body. We to this day find bones which have belonged to elephants, and from which the fame calculations might be made, but we live in an age when natural know- ledge is arrived at a much greater pitch than in thofe dark times. As thefe however may be, from what we find at this day, very fairly conjectured to belong to elephants, there are many other fuch ftories, the very circumftances of which will declare them to be fo to all who are verfed in thofe ftudies. St. Auftin talking of the exiftence of giants before the flood, defcribes, as a proof of it, a grinder tooth, which he faw on the fhores near Utica, which would have made a hundred iuch teeth of men of our fize. This good father takes it for granted, that this was part of a human fkeleton, but his own defcription proves it in reality to have been that of an elephant, and Hieronymus Magius, could perceive this error of St, Auftin, acknowledging it to be an elephant's tooth, though himfelf much prepofleflcd in favour of the exiftence of giants. In the church of St. Chriftopher, at Hifpulla, is fhewn a tooth as large as a man's lift, fuppofed to have been part of a gianfs mouth j and in a church at Venice, was long fhewn a fhoulder bone of a monftrous fize, which doubtlefs had belonged to a whale or an elephant, though it had received a thoufand prayers under the name of the blade bone of St. Chriftopher.

The pretended fkeleton of a giant, found near Drapani in Sicily, and mentioned by Boccatius, was plainly alfo the fkeleton of an elephant. The bones indeed were fo cal- cined by fubterranean fleams, that they foon mouldered away on being expofed to the open air. But three of the teeth were found entire, thefe weighed an hundred ounces, and were hung up in one of the churches, as an eternal monument of the fa£t, where they were plainly feen by per- fons acquainted with thefe fubje&s to be the teeth of an ele- phant, and thofe not of the largeft fize ufually met with. They likewife preferved part of the fkull, the cavity of which would contain fome bufhels of corn, and one of the fhank bones, which, on comparing with the fhank bone of a man, was found to be fo large, that this giant muft have been by computation at teaft two hundred cubits high. Ac- cording to this computation he is- figured and defcribed by Kercher in his Mundus Subterraneus, as the largeft of a whole train of giants which he places in the following order. The giant of Strabo found near Tangier, whofe height was fixty cubits.- Pliny's giant found in a mountain of Crete, forty fix cubits. The fkeleton of Afterius, fon of Anacles, ten cubits. The fkeleton of Oreftes, dug up by the fpecial command of the oracle, feven cubits. The giant whofe bones were found under a large oak not far from the convent of Kcyden near Lucern in Swiflerland, nine cubits. Goliah the fcripture giant, fix cubits and a half. Philof. Tranf. N°. 404. p. 502.

Thefe were doubtlefs all, except the laft, mere fiiEHons founded on the finding fome foffile bones of elephants. And of the fame kind are the bones found in France in 1456, near a river in the county of Cruflble, not far from Valence. The bones found here were fo large, that the fuppofed giant they be- longed to muft have been fifteen cubits high, and was fup- pofed there to be the famous Briareus ; the fkull was two cubits in diameter, and the fhoulder bone fix cubits broad. Caflanio mentions fevcral other teeth and bones found af- terwards about the fame place, his own defcriptions of which prove them to be the parts of elephants ; but his judgment in thefe things not carrying him fo far as to diftinguifli this, he has attributed them all to giants, and obferves, that it is no wonder fo many of thefe bones were found there, fince it was a mountainous country, and fuch as giants might well be fuppofed to delight to live in.

Johannes Goropius Becanus, notwithftanding that he lived in an age when ftories of giants were credited, and found their advocates even among men of learning, yet ventured to afTert that the tooth kept and fhewn fo facredly at Antwerp, as the tooth of a prodigious giant, who was defeated, as they pre- tend, by a fon of Julius Ca^far, king of the Arcadians, and was fabuloufly reported to have given occafion to the building of that caftle and city, was nothing but the grinder of an elephant ; and however difpleafing this ftory

might