Cardiff Giant

an American fraud. In 1868 an adventurer purchased a block of gypsum from a quarryman at Fort Dodge, Iowa. He shipped it to Chicago, where it was given in charge of a sculptor, who carved it into a ten foot giant. He pricked it with needles while it was soft to give the surface the appearance of the human skin, and treated it with acids to give it an ancient appearance. The giant was then packed in an iron box and shipped to Union, New York, where it was claimed by the owner, loaded on a large wagon, and drawn with four horses fifty miles to a farm near Cardiff, a post village in Onondaga County. The giant was buried and remained until October 16, 1869, nearly a year, when it was "accidentally" discovered by men who were pretending to dig a well. The petrified giant, as it was called, created the greatest astonishment. The lucky finders covered it with a tent. Special trains were run from New York City. It is estimated that 50,000 people paid a dollar apiece to see the wonder. Even men who prided themselves on scientific knowledge were for a time deceived. Finally, however, one of them broke off a fragment and discovered that it consisted, not of stone, but of gypsum, a soft substance resembling plaster of Paris. The perpetrators owned up to the fraud. The Cardiff giant was the most successful hoax ever perpetrated upon the American people. See Barnum; Gypsum