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gigantic people pretended to be spread over the southern parts of the country of Patagonia, a region which has received its denomination from them, and extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific seas, along the straits of Magellhaens. But since the facts have been more accurately examined, the pigmies of Madagascar have been found to exist only in fiction, in mistake, or in great exaggeration, by which a few examples of the defects, or abortive births, of nature have been presented to us as a distinct race. On the other hand, the Patagonian giants have dwindled down to a race of men the average of whose stature is somewhat above that of the savage nations in their neighborhood.* This is equally

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car. But the Baron de Clugny, who sailed in the same vessel, declares that she was evidently a diseased, and almost a monstrous offspring. She was of a chalky colour, with a breast very much depressed, and long arms. Her voice was stridulous, her head extended to a disproportioned length, and her whole appearance indicative of compleat stupidity. 

    * The average stature of the Patagonians has been determined to be about six feet, or but little more. And in the United States are many examples of men from six to seven feet in height; and several instances are known of men, who considerably exceed seven feet. Besides the general reasons which contribute to magnify the appearance of savage men in a new, and uncultivated country, one cause which helped to increase
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true of various other tribes of the American indians; and particularly of the Osages, a tribe situated on the South of the Missouri river, the greater part of whom are men of tall stature, and of robust, and athletic figure. The same was remarked by Tacitus concerning the ancient Germans compared with the inhabitants of the Roman provinces. But in all this, we see nothing more than the known effects of climate, of food, of culture, or of other natural causes, operating on animal bodies: in one region they are more slender, in another they are more gross; here they are seen of lower stature, and there of taller and more noble port. 
  II. Having, thus far, endeavored to point out the power of CLIMATE in the production of many of the varieties which distinguish different portions of the 

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the wonderful narrations of navigators concerning the size of the Patagonians was the discovery of graves among them of an extraordinary length, which, Mr. Brown, in his travels, assures us, arose, in some instances, if it was not a general custom of the country, from burying women at the feet of men; probably wives at the feet of their husbands, and dressing up both graves with the appearance of one. Mr. Wood informed him of a grave twelve feet in length which upon examination was found to contain two skeletons, of a male and female, deposited in this manner. 
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