The Morristown gazette. [volume] (Morristown, Tenn.) 1867-1920, 1876-04-05


Prehistoric America must have bee
an exceedingly curious and interestin
country. Its forests were filed wit
! mastodons, megatherinms, and othe
flargc and lively beasts, any of whic7
! ttbought nothing of scratching himsel
E on the sharp pipnacles of convenien
Gothic church, and so toppling it owe
on It's scores of helpless pew-holtlers, Il
the Mississippi valley, the industriou
mound-builders were constantly throw
ing up gigantic mole7hills, and planting
them with earthen pots and coppe
hatchets, in the vain expectation tha
the see0 thus sown would yield enor
mous crops of kitchen-ware and carpen
ter's tools. Ia Kentucky, the giants tC
whom the bones recently discovered in
a Kentucky cave are said to have be
llonged, strobe loftily along the turn
pike, kicking the Indians and the mound
builders contemptuously out of the way.
and finally, in Tennessee, a race Of pyg-
mics was continually holding political
/ meetings and resolving that mastodons,
mound builders and giants should be
| promptly abolished, aud that the size of
lstIhe inhabitants of this country should
be made and kept commensurate with
| its commercial necessities.
| 1t is rather odd that the existence of
the Tennessee apygmies of prehistoric
II ZAD1CAICd " a. uAlbt4 AGGcublJ nSNSl CltS-
! pectcd. The name of the mastodon has
| long been familiar to every person who
| is in the least degree addicted TO fossils
! His remains, in the shape of Of plaster
| of Paris skeleton, with the artists name
/ stamped in forehead, are exhibited in
every respectable museum, and inspire
1 the youth of AInerica with bitter regret
| that the animal so beautifully adapted
| for experiments with rcd-pepper loZen-
hoa
to trouble and the nOmadic circus is at
rest The mound builders have been
the subject Of scores of learned essays,
in which their identity with the Aztecs,
the Chinese, the Egyptians, the Welsh,
and the lost tribes of Israel has been
triumphantly shown; and of the exact
height and probable capacity for whisky
of the Kentucky giants, we have had
careful and presumably accurate stats.
tics. The discovery of the pygmies is,
however, so very recent, that no one has
az yet framed any theory whatever to
account for their origin, and to explain
there complete extinction. fun sf r
When the Kentucky giants were dis
covered, il was natural that the State
pride of the people of Tennessee should
Sc somewhat hurt. The Tennesseeans,
however, did not sit down and content
themselves with reviling the KentucK-
ians and insinuating doubts as to the al
legged character of the gigantic bones.
They promptly proceeded to find rival
bones of still greater merit, and their
industry has been rewarded by their dis
covery of a graveyard containing the
skeletons of seventy-fve thousand pyg-
mics of the average height of three feet
each What are the three eight-foot
giants of Kentucky, in comparison with
so great cloud of pygmiesg If we may
Judge from the price usually paid by
circus managers for living giants and
dwarfs, threefoot dwarf is decidedly
more valuable than an eight-foot giant,
and if the same standard governs the
price of fossils, the seventy-five thousand
Tennessee pygmieS are worth fully
twenty-five thousand times as much as
the three Kentucky giants. While the
Kentuckians can present their giants to
three eminent scientific men, and thas
obtain three distinct scientific reports
certifying to the enormous interest and
value of fossil giants she Tenncsseeans
can supply every scientific man in this
country and in Europe with a fossil
d dwarf aud SO secure testimonials with
out number to the unequaled excellence
of Tennessee pygmies. Indeed, If the
diseoVerers of the pygmies will only
employ some aStute planO-naker who is
an expert in testimonials, to obtain for
the fossil dwarfs the recognition of the
scientific world, there is not living
scientific persoa.AVllo will not sigma GER
tificate setting forth his admiration for
the beauty and durability of the pygmies,
and his determination to use none but
those of the celebrated Tennessee grave
ward for the rest of his professional life.
At what period these pygmies flourish
ed what they accomplished, and by
what means they were induced to retire
simultaneously to their graveyard, can
only be con jectured. They may have
been the identical pygmies that, accord
ing to the Greek legend, waged war with
the cranes. If SO, the cranes must have
proved too powerful for them. This is
hardly probable, and any modern Ten
nesseean who has attempted to keep
chickens in the neighborhood of a fami-
ly of citizens of African descent, will
scornfully refuse to believe that pygmies
of three feet in height could not kill
cranes on their roOstt with at least as
much success as is achieved by the
African small boy when invading the
midnight hen-house ss We must wait for
further discoveries before il will be safe
to decide whether the pygmies were
contemporary with the giants and
whether they preceded the mound- build
ers.l The bare fact that they once ex-
listed is all that we can now safely affirm
of them; but doubtless by the time that
every home in the country is. ornament
cd by fossil pygmy, and every news
paper publishes extracts from the GER
tificates of scientific persons who are
overwhelmed with admiration OF the
vast superiority of the Tennessee to
those OF all rival communities, we shall
be in the possession of information
which will enable US to know at least as
much of the pygmies as we now know
OF the mastodon and the mound-build