and an opinion from him is certainly entitled to respectful
consideration:--

EDITOR DEMOCRAT--I have just returned from a hasty visit to the
colossal statue, or "Fossil Giant," as many have called it, which
is now causing so great an excitement in our sister city, Syracuse,
and in all the country for many score of miles around.

This great archeological wonder is located in the Onondaga Valley,
on the west side, about three-quarters of a mile from the village
of Cardiff. The valley itself is one of erosion, dating its birth
to the time when the gradual rise of our continent from beneath
the ocean's waves had subjected all this portion of our State to
the fierce furrowing and deep denuding action of violent currents
of water, aided in their work by floating masses of ice and by
rock debris carried by and often frozen into these masses. For
about twelve miles south from Syracuse the valley is quite narrow,
but here the hills recede on either side and sweep widely around
in two high crescent-like ranges to meet again (or nearly so) at
a point three or four miles higher up the stream. Within the sort
of amphitheater thus formed, and at the foot of the western hill,
is the farm of Mr. Newell. His house and outbuildings lie at the
edge of the slope, and touching a low meadow which extends for a
hundred yards or more to the bushy margin of a creek beyond. A
smaller stream or a branch of this same appears at one time to
have run close to the hill, leaving faint traces of its contour
on the meadow, and one small elliptical swale or soft, boggy spot,
a few yards across, near the lower corner of Mr. Newell's barn.
It was while digging a shallow pit in this swale that the relic
was found. It is a gigantic human figure lying on its back, with