The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1871-05-05
Che Marietta guarual.
Marietta, Georgia, May S, 1871
ASTONISHING DISCOVERY of AN
EXTINCT RACE IN THE SOUTH
WEST

Since the result ofGov. Arny's eN-
ploratiens in New Mexico was made
public, there has been no discovery
of more interest to the American ar
chaologist than the one alleged to
have been made recently in Iowa,
on the line ofthe projected Dubuque
and Minnesota Railroad. The work
men, while engaged in excavating
for the road, in the limestone at the
foot of the bluff, are said to have
come upon a flat stone covered with
strange characters. This being re-
moved, opened the way into a pas
sage about four feet wide and six feet
high, leading directly into the heart
of the bluff. At the distance of about
fifty feet from the entrance another
stone, similar to the first had to be
removed, when a large chamber re-
vealed itself, cut out of the solid rock,
about twenty Ave feet square and
twenty feet high. The floor was hard
and smooth, while the walls and roof
were carved in a sort of rude basso
relieve, with figures of birds, trees,
stars, serpents and chariots. The
south wall was adorned with rep
resentation of the sun, and immedi-
ately below this the figure of a man
in the act of stepping out Of a boat,
and holding his in hand dove"
So far the revelations were not
very different from many previous
ones in similar caves and rock cham
bers throughout our Western coun-
try. But the most curious part of
the discovery was yet to come, and
one that would go far to support the
theory of many SavantS with regard
to the physical degeneration of the
race. A fiat slab in the floor of the
cavern being raised, revealed below
a vault filled with skeletons Of I'M
usual size, the. largest being seven
feet eight inches high by actual meas
urement. By the side of each skel-
eton was set small vase, filled with
yellow earth, beneath which were
found animals bones and particles of
animal matter. The skeletons were
placed in a semi-circle toward the
southwest.
Who this lost and unknown race of
giants can have been, we leave it to
our antiquaries to conjecture. Per-
haps they were branch of that
mysterious and cultivated people
whom the Aztecs are said to have
swept away and destroyed in their
great hegira to the plains of Mexico.
Or they may have been related to
the great stock of the Natchez, which
once held sway all along the Missis-
sippi. The figured sun upon the wall
of the rock chamber indicate that
they worshipped that luminary, and
the representation of a man with a
dove stepping out of boat, may be
an allusion to that tradition Of the
Deluge, which in one form or anoth-
er, all of our aboriginal people have
been found to hold. But to what
ever forgotten family this race may
have belonged, it is certain they had
attained a higher degree of civiliza-
ton than was reached by those who
came after them. In the fingers of
the largest skeleton was clasped a
pearl ornament, nd traces of cloth
were found at tie foot of the remains.
What is still nore important and GU
rious, many copper implements were
found, thus seeming to show that the
Lake Superior mines had been work.
ed at very early period.
If the accounts we have received
of this remarkable cave are strictly
true, investigation may derive from
it important additions to our stock
acknowledge regarding the primitive
races of this continent, and we are
glad to know thai the remains are
to be removed to the Iowa Institute
of Arts and Sciences at Dubuque.