This person was not quite 8 feet 3
inches tall. Buffon, ordinarily a reliable authority, comes to a
loose conclusion that there is no doubt that men have lived who
were 10, 12, and even 15 feet tall; but modern statisticians
cannot accept this deduction from the references offered.
From the original estimation of the height of Adam (Henrion once
calculated that Adam's height was 123 feet and that of Eve 118)
we gradually come to 10 feet, which seemed to be about the
favorite height for giants in the Middle Ages. Approaching this
century, we still have stories of men from 9 to 10 feet high, but
no authentic cases. It was only in the latter part of the last
century that we began to have absolutely authentic heights of
giants, and to-day the men showing through the country as
measuring 8 feet generally exaggerate their height several
inches, and exact measurement would show that but few men
commonly called giants are over 7 1/2 feet or weigh over 350
pounds. Dana says that the number of giants figuring as public
characters since 1700 is not more than 100, and of these about 20
were advertised to be over 8 feet. If we confine ourselves to
those accurately and scientifically measured the list is
surprisingly small.
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