SOURCE: Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne (1864)

DESCRIPTION: "It was the Ape Gigans! Fourteen feet high, covered with coarse hair, of a blackish brown, the hair on the arms, from the shoulder to the elbow joints, pointing downwards, while that from the wrist to the elbow pointed upwards, it advanced. Its arms were as long as its body, while its legs were prodigious. It had thick, long, and sharply pointed teeth- like a mammoth saw. It struck its breast as it came on smelling and sniffing, reminding me of the stories we read in our early childhood of giants who ate the Flesh of men and little boys!" (Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne)

NOTES: The Ape Gigans is an extinct creature no longer living on in or the Earth.

HISTORY: Always felt this one was a bit of a rip. Something cool finally happens! The adventurers run into a real bonified monster -- and it's just a dream. Good thing Edgar Rice Burroughs came along fifty years alter and wrote the Pellucidar series. He created the Sagoths, perhaps from Verne's suggestion in this novel.
 
 

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