Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/331

 exaggerated, while we have a right to regard as authentic giants whose height runs up to eight and a half feet. A giant eight feet high was exhibited at Rouen in 1755. A Swedish peasant, cited by Buffon, was eight feet and eight lines in height, and the stature of the Finnish giant Cujanus was the same; while Frederick William, King of Prussia, had a guard of nearly equal stature. The giant, Gillé de Trent, in the Tyrol, and one of the guards of the Duke of Brunswick, were more than eight feet four inches in height. The Grecian giant, Amanab, now eighteen years old, is seven feet eight inches tall; the Chinese giant, Chang, eight feet three inches. The Austrian giant, Winckelmeier, who was recently exhibited in Paris, measuring eight and a half feet, may be regarded as a specimen of the highest stature attained by the human species. At the opposite extremes may be found numerous dwarfs not more than twenty inches, and some even as little as sixteen and even twelve inches in height; but such dwarfs are only monsters with atrophied limbs or twisted back-bones, or stunted infants, whose age is usually exaggerated by their Barnums. One of the most remarkable dwarfs on record was the celebrated Borulawsky, who was born in 1789, and died in 1837, who was never more than twenty-eight inches in height, was perfect in every limb and proportion, and was bright and intelligent.

The mean between these two extremes of stature is about five feet five and a half inches, and the difference between them is six feet one and a half inch. The mean height is nearly the same with the average stature of Frenchmen. We give an illustration embodying a comparative representation of these extremes, with three intervals between