THE CARDIFF GIANT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume VII, Issue 1967, 7 May 1870, Page 6

THE CARDIFF GIANT.

TriE lIODV FOCXD TO CONSIST OK ROCK SALT was it lot's win: ? tbb lost tribks. , KIICDITE SPKCULATIOXS. A few months ago an immense stone , image was discovered some leet below the , surface of the ground at Cardiff, about 13 , miles from Syracuse, in the State of New j York, under the following circumstanccs ; — \ ;\lr. Newell lives near the hamlet so named He is a quiet-, ordinary, common-place citizen, as innocent of any rapacity to originate n historical imposition as can be imagined. Ho possesses n well at his house ; hut near his burn in the ordinary needs of his cattle, required for convenience another; and a low, marshy wet place suggested an easy work to place the new well where the cattle could have its direct advantage. Selecting his locality- and preparing for the labour, on the Ifith dav of October, ISG'.t, he hires his labourers, and tin y begin the excavation. At the depth of three feet an obstacle to the easy digging is found in some stony substance. Newell goes to his bou«e for a tool to remove it. Returning, his workmen have revealed the feet of something like an inr-.ge, and soon, following the progress of the obstruction, this huge figure. ' As a statue, says a trustworthy person who inspected if. this is the mo«t purposeless objectless of all such creations of the art. It is, if stone, apparently without precedent or subject. For nil other statues there is a department of mythology i-i history or of the ideal. This is no g->d of pagan or brahmin, no hero of antiquity. Tt. is just a huge man, with limbs so disposed lis if in an uneasy slumber, 3-et with a face which has in it something of the majestic, and quite distinctly of the respectable and upper class of society, and n"t distorted or disturbed by pain. It reminded me of the faces of the Romans as they appear on the bas relief of the arch of Titus, in the triumphal procession of eonquerin { Koniiin and captive Jew. It seems to uie. if any one had made a statue or figure for a show or deception or sensation to amaze a crowd, he would have formed sirai sensational figure—for Onondaga, localities of local history, some great Indian warrior, or some one famous in history— •' striking an attitude" at once ; but this is outside, apparently, at least, of all design or plan. Conjecture ran wild as to the nature and origin of the thing. Some persons declared it was a petrified giant; others asserted it to be a splendid specimen of pre-historie art, —a relic of a remote civilisation and an extinct race. Learned professors from the American univerMties visited, inspected, and reported upon it, each of them differing in opinion from the others, and each firaily persuaded of the correctness of his own theory. Finally, we haTe the following clever dissertation on the subject, from a wag signing himself 1). B. Pinch, rector of the Church of St. Sal., which settles the whole contro-

versy : — Kxainininc the giantess (Tor the remains are evidently those of a female) closely, 1 saw that Iter features were neither Caucasian nor Tndian, but decidedly Semitic. The delicate formation of the nostrils, up which I stack' my linger to the extent of 2in., could be found only in n Hebrew proboscis. The contour of the figure «'as such as that found on the PtoleniHie medals, and ev«m the garb in which the body was dressed so closely resembled that of the Hebrew slaves represented in the has reliefs of Assyria, that ivne but an itinerant 1 ivnian who had never studied Prinsep could mistake them. i'ros-'cutiui; my inquiries still further. 1 thrust my hand into the month of the " petrifaction" ami extracted what wa> unmistakably a pickled mandrake —an edible dearly loved bv Hebrew dames. This discovery placed beyond doubt the truth of my first impression, that the " iictrifac'i"n" was the remains of a Hebrew I'eiinle. I>r. Smi ii. mic ill' the vestrymen of mv church, had loaned me, at my urgent request. hi< scalpel, as ir is well "known that the surface' of the bo ly is er.siiv removed when a body is carve t from sl.inr. ('lie :iboVe remark is. as

' rtemus Ward would S', v " -ar»:i st ical." for the same issue of the /A >v/./ which nave vent, to (In- theory that the !>.).iy .r:is carved from st uc, said that the surface of it was easily removed with a knife.) I un'tl tliis scalpel, :iud. instead of removing one layer ot "stone" 1 removed several layers ot' the alluvial soil in which the Ivdy had heen deposited, and finally reduced the whole statue by about five feet, thus bringing it to the size of an ordinary woman. 1 then saw unmistakably that the remains were those of a woman, ami that the encrusted c'ay had simply taken the form of the body, toother with that of iis robes. .Judge of your surprise-, for flic fact was anticipated by me, and. therefore, not surpr'tM ilc to me, when it was found thai the body was composed entirely -of salt ! 1 said to myself: " l'id the ancient Hebrews curve statues of sab.- Never." And the fact stood confessed that here at hist, was found Lot's wile. "What a discovery! Antiquity had silted down its testimony, and orthodoxy is no 1 niLror in danger. " Hut how could this monument of antiquity have been brought to our shore r \t liehring's Straits Vsia js but i>t> miles from America, and what is more probable than that when the two tribes became disgusted with the effete aristocracies of tlie old world, they should have gone to (he uttermost part oi' that seat of degeneracy, and have embarked for America, carrying witli them their household lurniture and Lot's wife. •• t t-t us see if philosophy will not aid in establishing the fact that this petrifaction is Lot's wile. The place at which occurred the disturbance which occasioned the exile of Lot and his family was called v .'dom. It, is well known that the Masoretic points were not used till about the commencement of the Christian era. Consequently, the 3* were placed haphazard bv such transcribers. The most ancient manuscripts of the Hebrew books, such as the Cudc.r Jie.va, spell sodiitn sodium ; and what is salt hut Ihe chloride of sodium r 1 llius. n< in all matters of biblical criticism, philology comes to our aid Now, as to internal evidence. " Syracuse is the salt depositary of this continent, and here was the body found. If commentators find difficulty in admitting that the lost tribes knew of this upon landing on our shores, and that they appropriately placed their precious burden in a, soil congenial to it, is it altogether improvable that the mere placing of the body within any region would not, for the sake of perpetual miracle, impregnate all the surrounding region with the substance of the body ?"