The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1877-04-19
Extraordinary Archaeological Discoy.
cry i'm Missouri.

In Stoddard County, Mo-, strange ar
discoveries have been made
and unique relics of forgotten race
exhumed. | have written to the World
already of inscriptions on a tablet OF
stone inserted in the inner wall of a
ruined temple in Guanajuato. The
writing is in the same characters, if
my memory be not grievously at fault,
as those used by the Sun Worshipers OF
the old temple of stone in Western
Mexico. The tablet exhumed in Stod-
dard County is of glazed terra-cetta,
and is almost as perfect as when de-
posted in the mound from which it
was taken few days ago. 1t is 1O3
inches wide and Is inches long, and
covered with characters clearly cut,
bearing suggestive resemblance to
Sanscrit letters. On both sides of the
tablet appear these unique hieroglyphs.
The tracing was evidently executed
when the clay was yet soft and thin; it
was dried, hardened and glazed. The
whole appearance of this undeciphered
leaf from the continents remotest his
tory has many characteristics of the
library tablets of the Assyrian King
Assur-bani-pal recently dug from the
mounds at Nineveh, and when l remem-
Der how near the likeness is to the in
scriptions in the old Mexican temple,
am persuaded that some explorer will
yet have photographs made OF all these
drawings and of that discovered on a
stone not far from Tuscaloosa, Ala,
and, comparing the strange records of
the unknown races, ascertain their
origin and determine, perhaps, the
vexed question of unity. The charac-
tiers on this Missouri tablet are arranged
in regular lines or rows, and are clear
and distinct in outline. A key to solve
the mysteries involved in these two
"pages - of prehistoric lore would be
an "open sesame - to the prefoundest
mystery that affects the fortunes of the
human race Is there no Champollion
to make stones eloquent, dead centuries
loquacious, and to invest mummies with
habiliments of ancient life? Were the
MouLd-builders of the Valley of the
Mississippi of the same race with those
who reared temples at Chichon and Co.
pan and OtolHm and PalenqueP We're
the bearded Natchez Indians the de-
scendants, as they claimed, of this race,
whose power was coterminous with the
two oceans, and extended, as their ra-
contours told the followers of Bienville
and of La Sale, even to Africa? They
said that when the continent was con-
vulsed, as never before or since, their
broadest, richest domain east of Florida
and South America was submerged and
the West was upheaved. The French
forefathers of the writer of this said
further that the Natchez Indians were
never beaten till their priests were made
drunk and sacred fires that burned per-
ennially on the great mound below
Natchez were suffered to become ex-
tinct. When this cataclysm befeu the
hapless race no further serious resist
ance was encountered by the French
invaders. The Natchez were de-
stroyed or dispersed, and this
was the end of the latest and
very remote descendants of the Mound
builders that left traces of their toll ev-
erywhere, from the great lakes to the
Gulf, in the Valley of the Mississippi.
Whether the writer on the strange
glyphs on the Stoddard County stone
was of the Colhuas, or Toltecs, or a
wanderer from the Orient, voyager
with Hanno or some Phenecian who
passed beyond the Pillars of Hercules
to return no more-these are inquiries
to be solved by him who translates the
story inscribed on this tablet and on
| that in the old temple of Guanaiuato.
If Congress should appoint commits
sion to survey the lowlands of the Mis-
sissippi, not only with reference to the
possibility of controlling it's floods,
much might be done in the way of ex-
ploring the hidden mysteries of the
swamps, once the seat of this unique
and ancient civilization.
The Stoddard County tablet has been
forwarded to the learned Orientalist OF
Harvard University. Though the SINH
larity between the characters employed
by the Mound builders and the Sancrit
"letters is striking, it is perhaps on
ly fanciful, and careful analysis of the
structural forms of the glyphs may re-
veal no likeness whatever to any alpha
bette language. In fact, the inscrip-
ton may be wholly topographic, and
the language employed by the writer
may not have been developed into lex
geographic unity. Ifthis be true, spec.
ulative psychologists may again infer
that this was the Oldest of inhabited
continents and the seat of the earliest
civilization of our race.-NeW York
| World
AN old Connecticut paper, of the
year 1907, contains an advertisement,
signed by Mrs. Thankful Hutchins, in
ren1v RI ono that had bean Y,hlish od