Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1876-11-16
Lost Peoples.

LIN the article upon the Mound
Builders last Sunday we alluded to TIA
well-known fact that the history O
that remarkable race is SO completed.
lost that there is scarcely the remotes
possibility of our knowing any more
about them than is known now. The
Mound-builderS are not alone in this
unhappy fate. A profound mystery
envelopes the people whose relics have
recently been discovered in South
western Colorado. The mechanical
skill shown in the construction OF
their cave-dWellings, and the artistic
taste displayed in the decoration OF
their pottery, prove that they must
lave made very considerable progress
in civilization. Yet they have "died
and left no sign" save the houses cut
in the imperishable rock and frag-
ments Of nodded clay which once
served for use or ornament. We know
not whence they came OF whittier they
went how they emerged from prime
val barDarism or what causes accom-
plished their utter humiliation. All
conjectures are vain, for there is moth
ing but the merest guess-work on
which to base them.
The same is true of another and still
more interesting people-the former
inhabitants of Central America. In
those dense tropical forests of Yuea-
tan, which only two or three bold ex-
plorf- have dared to penetrate, are
the 4. sof vast cities which, in their
extenG md grandeur, remind one Of
the shattered remains of ancient
Egypt that line the banks of the Nile.
Indeed, by strange coincidence
which never has been, and probably
never will be, satisfactorily explained,
the style of architecture that prevailed
in the l0ng-ago days of Yucatan bears
a striking resemblance to that OF
Egypt in the days Of the Pharaohs.
Both might have been conceived in
the same mind and wrought out by
the same hand. The gloomy majesty
and the splendid solidity which con-
front us in the pyramids, the Obelisks
and thesphynx, arereproduced in des-
0late region even now untrOdden by the
foot of any white man. Who built
these cities in Yucatan? Who reared
those temples and palaces in an OBJ
scure corner of the New World, which
astonish travellers familiar with the
rarest structures of the Old? Who
the government, the re-
ligion, the thoroughly organized and
equipped society which demanded
such achievements of science and in
dustry, and made them possible? Why
did people capable of doing so much
perish SO utterly? No answer can be
given to these inquiries. We only
know that race worthy to have lived
has died; died and bequeathed to us
no memorial save the dumb stones in
the depths of the painless wilderness.
Even more curious is the problem
presented on a remote island in the
Pacific Ocean. On what is called
Easter Island, 1000 miles from South
America, 1000 more from the Marquee
sas, and more than 1000 from the
Gambler Islands, are found hundreds
of gigantic stone images, now mostly
in ruins. Most Of these are thirty or
forty feet high, and some seem to have
been even larger; the crowns on their
heads, cut out of red stone, being ten
feet in diameter; while the head and
neck of one measure twenty feet.
These images appear to have original
Iy stood on extensive stone platforms;
yet the whole island has only an area
Of about thirty square miles. Now,
as one of the smallest images, eight
feet high, weighs four tons, the largest
must weigh considerably more than a
hundred tons; and the existence of
such vast works implies a large popu-
iation, abundance of food and an es-
tablished government. Yet how did
food and government find
Judgment on a mere speck of land
wholly cut off from the rest of the
world? Who were these Easter Island
ers? From whence did they come?
Whittier did they go2 No answer is
heard, nor ever will be.
A few weeks ago, Mr.. Skertchly, of
the British Geological Survey, dis
covered in the vicinity of Brandon,
some flint implements depes-
tied in beds formed before the close of
the glacial period. Near Clifford he
found a jawbone containing teeth, and
the clay was burned as if
a fire had been built upon it. Mr.
Skertchly believes that this is the one
solitary instance in the whole world
of a camping ground of paleolithic
men; a camping ground below the
boulder clay, which belongs to the
earliest part of the glacial period.
These remains, then, are far older than