Cardiff giant, especially on the left side, are as manifest as
they are in a ledge of rocks. The eye brows, the tip of the nose,
the breast and the thigh are of the same stratum, and the layers
in the right arm are clearly of different degrees of density.

The conclusion seems irresistible that the giant is a work of art
rather than of nature. The sculpture must have been done some
years ago, or the lower parts of the figure would not have crumbled
and been washed away by the sluggish oozing of the water through
the soil.

Its age cannot antedate the present race of men, for the shape of
the head and the features are entirely modern. The old-time people,
as portrayed in the sculpture of Assyria and Egypt, had no such
heads as this. The artist evidently took a corpse for a model
and proportioned his colossal figure by careful measurement. He
was thus enabled to secure the general anatomical accuracy for
which his giant is remarkable. He followed the model very closely,
not attempting to represent a living being, not venturing even to
supply the missing hair. And these omissions, the result of
inexperience, furnish, singularly enough, the principal arguments
to the petrifactionists. For the popular opinion that the body
and head are hollow, that the nostrils and other orifices are open,
and that the tendons in the decayed leg are visible, has not the
slightest foundation. Why was this image made? Why hidden? and
by whom? are questions which I must be excused from answering
at present. HENRY


THE BELIEF OF THE ONONDAGA INDIANS--THE BODY