Page:The Annual Register 1758.djvu/347

 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 333

to fancy : in particular they fay, that thofe bones of the fofliie uni- corn, which are called the jaw- bone, have fuch apophyfes as are never to be met with in the natural way; and that fome being like no bone at all, they fcruple not to con- clude the whole to be a liifus natu- rae, or an accidental produce of na- ture. Moreover, they add, that granting fome to be like true bones, it cannot be inferred from thence that they were really fo ; becaufe elfe it would follow, that the figures reprefented in fome pieces of Hate, and the Cornua Ammonis, were once real ; which are now allowed on all hands to be ftones of a particular kind.

Conringius, in his diflertation De ant i quo Hehn'iadift Jiatu, thinks the fofliie unicorn were petrified bones. And Otto de Querick, in 'WxiExperimentaMagdeburgxca, m ain- tains the fame opinion. That there had been fuch animals as unicorns, he pretends to corroborate by the following fa£l : he fiys, that anno 1663, in a lime-pit near Qjjedlin- burg, there was found an entire ficeieton of an unicorn, which had fixed to its forehead a long bone, or horn, as thick as a man's thigh- bone, and was prefented to the Abbefsof Quediinburgh ; and, that ihefe bones had been conveyed to this place in the general flood, is proved fufficiently by the various bones dug up in moil parts of the world. The Theatriim Eiiropcsr.niy part V. mentions, that anno 1645 the Swedes dug up, nearCrems in Auftria, a giant's Ikeleton, whofe head was as big as a middle-fized table, and one tooth weighed five pounds and a half, and the bone of his arm as big as a man's middle. Eckftormius alfo confirms it, with the author of the Topographia

of Brunfivick, that one time there was found in the Baumans cave an human Ikull of a gigantic iize.

But the bignefs of fome of thefe bones feems to argue that thcf could not be human, and there- fore, 'tis probable they either have increafed under ground, or elfe are a lu/us nafura : for the talleft man we know of was Og of Bafao, whofe bed is faid, in Deuteronomy, chap. iii. to have been eighteen feet long : now, allowiag the bed to be but one foot longer than the man, he was feventeen feet high. But if the head and tooth found by the Swedes had belonged to a regularly - proportioned man, he muil have exceeded Og by a vaft deal ; for the tooth is faid to have weighed five pounds and a half, and fuppofmg that of a common man to weigh half an ounce, which is too much, then the giant mull have had a height anfvverable to 176 limes the bulk of a middle- fized man.

Others cannot comprehend how thefe fuppofed bones Ihould have been brought together in fuch quan- tities into thefe caverns ; nor will they be fatisfied with the reafons fome naturalius give for their man- ner of petrifaction ; wherefore Sen- nertus, in his Epitome Sciettti^e tmtu- rails, lib. v. cap. 4. Schroder, ia his Pharmacopoeia medica, and Lau- rentius Baul'chias, in his Schedi^ am/a Curiofiim de XJnicornu fojjilif and others, count it among the minerals.

Kircher, in \n% Mundus fubter- rayieus, lib. viii. c. 8. makes this diltinclion betwixt bones of a mi- neraJ produce, and petrified ones ; he fays, the firfiare folid through- out, but the latter hollow. Which, obfervation 1 have found not to be

in fa!-