Osage Valley banner. (Tuscumbia, Miller County, Mo.) 1879-1881, 1880-04-22

Prehistoric Relies.

ologists now admit that the hemisphere
called ''the New Worldn is really the
older Of the two this interesting, II not
important, fact having been ascertained
by elaborate geological investigation
and comparison. 1t has also been disr
covered that the horse-an animal sup
posed TO have been unknown in America
until the European invasion-existed
here innumerable ages before; and tho
fossil remains found by Prof, Marsh in
the far West, and now in the museum
ut Yale College, furnished Huxley with
indisputable proof of the truth
of the evolution theory-which
that distinguished scientist utilized in
his, lectures delivered in New York.
TIL ancient river gravels of California
have produced rude stone implements
Of various kinds, which, in the opinion
of those competent TO Judge, indicate
that human beings lived and died on the
Pacific coast during or beforethe glacial
period. Now we have a report of re-
cent archaeological explorations in Kan
sas by Judge +. p. West, which points
still more strongly in the same direction.
"The geology of the region explored is
simple. Prior to the drift epochs the
river channels were deeper than now,
and the river valleys lower. Suisse
quently the valleys were filled by a Ia
austrian deposit of considerable depth,
and beneath this deposit the remains of
an extinct race occur" They have
been found in seven different counties
along the line of the Kansas Pacific
Railroad, or near il; and, with a single
exception, on the second bottom or tor
race of streams. In the majority of
cases they were struck in digging wells, /
and at a depth of from twenty to thirty
feet below the surface of the soil. They
consist OF stone and bone implements,
pottery, and fragments of human skel-
etons. From the fact that in the seven
counties there is not more than one wen
TO the square mile, and that the space
covered by a well is very small, il is
thought the population must have been
very large in the prehistoric era; for it
hardly seems probable hat the wells
happened to hit upon the only spots
where there are any remains. Judge
West says;
"Here we have a buried race en-
wrapped in a profound and startling
mystery "a race whose appearance
and exit in the worlds drama precedes
stupendous geological changes marking
our continent, and which, perhaps, re-
quired hundreds of thousands of years
in their accomplishment. The prize is
no less than determining when this
mysterious people lived, how they
lived, when they passed out of ex-
istenee, and why they became ex-
~tinct."
THERE'S no reason to suppose that, Kan
sas isan exception to the rule, and we
are justified in assuming that many
other States and Territories, if proper
" examined, would prove equally rich
in similar relics. Indeed, we know from
the Hayden survey that Southwestern
Colorado was once peopled by a race
which had made very considerable prog
ress in civilization, and the immense
earthworks raised in Ohio and else
where by the so-called mound build
ersn are equally emphatic testimony
which is supplemented by something
still more curious, the ruins of palaces
and temples in Central America. But,
of course, the remains in California and
Kansas are UNNECESSARILY older than
any thing yet found in Colorado, Ohio,
or Central America. They can not be
much, if any, younger than those dis
covered in the valley of the Somme ia
France, or in the South of England
caves.
So archaeology as well as geology
shows that the New World is old, very
old how old it is impossible to even
guess. If this antiquity only belonged
to the dull forms of inanimate nature, it
would scarcely provoke a passing
thought from other than q scientific
mind; but when it embraces beings like
ourselves, what a lesson is con-
veyed thereby. The single SIM
pie fact that tens, probably
hundreds, of thousands of years
before the period which theological
chronology assigns for the creation of
the world, men, women and children
lived in this Western hemisphere, played
their parts in the strange and sad drama
of human existence, and passed away
is sufficient TO kindle the coolest inn
agination, Who were they? What
did they believer How much or little
light did they have to guide them from
the cradle TO the gravef "How lived,
how loved, how died theyPh We can not
conceive that our civilization, our So
ciety, our arts, our religion, win ever
be so thoroughly demolished and
swept away as theirs have been. Doubt
less they thought theirs were immortal;
yet all that Is left of them and theirs
only serves as material for biologists.
psychologists and antiquarians to quar-
rel over. What right have we to pre-
sumo that we shall be any more FORUM
ateP-that ten, fifty, or a hundred thou
sand years hence, our scattered and IN
recognizable relics will not be food for
the scientific discussions Of another
racer Verify, {" what shadows we are,
and what shadows we pursue!"-St.