p. 5 | A Race of Giants by John Norton Loughborough

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 11, 1912

A Race of Giants

By John Norton Loughborough

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH

[Reprinted by request from the REVIEW of July 18, 1865.]

WHEN the bones of men and animals of a much larger size than those living on earth at the present time are discovered, many are ready to claim that “these bones must have belonged to a race of men and to classes of animals that existed before Adam was placed upon the earth.” We believe the Bible gives us a record of the very commencement of the inhabiting of the earth. And instead of indorsing the idea that Moses’ record of “the beginning” is incomplete, we claim that earth’s first inhabitants, both men and beasts, were much larger than at present, having now been affected by the curse for nearly six thousand years.

While at Princeville, Ill., visiting at the home of Brother Bliss, a circumstance was related by him which I consider a striking proof of man’s larger stature in former times. Several years ago, as Brother Bliss was passing through the woods, I think he said in southern Illinois, he came across a tree that had been blown over. There were eighteen very large-sized human skulls in the earth turned up by the roots of the tree. These skulls, with many other human bones found under the tree, were in a good state of preservation. The tree, as designated by its grains, was at least one hundred fifty years old. The jaw-bones of these skulls were so large that Brother Bliss’s father, who is a large man, could easily put the lower jaw over his chin. A leg-bone was found there, which proved to be the bone between the knee- and ankle-joints. This bone, when set up endwise on the floor beside a six-foot man, would extend a handbreadth above his knee. By comparing this bone with the same bone in the leg of a six-foot man, it was decided that the bone must have belonged to a man at least eight feet high.

Brother Henry Nicola, of this place, has just stated to me that in his boyhood days he lived in Virginia. A mound was opened on his father’s farm, in which were found very large human bones. Among these bones was a skull so large that it could easily be placed on the outside of the head of the largest-sized man. These bones were supposed to belong to men eight or nine feet in height. The discovery of such large bones we regard simply as proof that men were once much larger than at present. The existence of these bones is not evidence that they belonged to men that existed before Adam.

By comparing man’s present stature with that of those who possessed these bones, we may learn that the race has fallen off greatly in size. And in this we also behold the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prediction of the languishing of the earth under the curse. “Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof. And it shall be, as with the

people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him. The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the Lord hath spoken this word. The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth, the haughty people of the earth [the height of the people, margin] do languish. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the law, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.” Isa. 24: 1-6. This prophecy is a striking description of the effects of the curse upon the earth and its inhabitants. It seems also from this prophecy that the height of the people’s stature was to diminish. This part we understand is strikingly accomplished in the physical, mental, and moral languishing of the race.