CARDIFF GIANT

famous hoax perpetrated by George Hall (or Hull) of Binghamton, N.Y. A block of gypsum was quarried near Fort Dodge, Iowa, and shipped to Chicago. There it was carved (1868) in the shape of a human figure and then buried on a farm near Cardiff, N.Y. Discovered (1869) by well diggers, the statue was alleged to be a 10-foot (3-metre) petrified prehistoric man, until the hoax was exposed by the American palentologist Othniel C. Marsh.