Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1890-12-09
4 HINT TO NEVADA CAPITAL.
Place Suggested for a Neveda
Academy of Sciences.

suggestion which the rich men OF
| Nevada ought to pay some atten
ton to- He says:
4 The fine building of the Califor
MIA Academy of Sciences, which
owes its existence to the mUnific-
ence of james Lick, rises nobly on
Market street. When the Acad-
envy shall feel itself perfectly at
home there, let Us trust that it
will do something which may fully
Justify it's eXistance. Our men of
science, in and out OF the Acad-
envy, are about the LATEST on
earth, / think. Dan de guile,
the Comstock newspaper man,
had an article in last Sundays
Chronicle on the geological and
archaeological wonders of Nevada
/ that almost anywhere else would
have stirred up the local scientific
world; but what California scien-
lists read in newspapers they give
no attention to. A dozen years or
so ago saw for the first time on
the floor of the quarry at Carson
penitentiary the footprints pre-
served in stone of what appeared
to be giants. They were as hui
man in form as my own foot could
| make, though in sieze my shos
placed in one was as baby's to a
laborer's hrogan. There were
the tracks of animals too, from
the elephants to the VOLTS. Eos
sill tusks and bones bad been dug
up at various times during the
preceding fifteen years. One COM
plete great tusk had been present
cd by Lieutenant Governor sling
erland, when he was Warden, to
the landlord of the Ormsby House.
It hung behind the bar as an or
nament till it crumbled to dust.
I wrote privately of these things
to one of the foremost scientists
of California-of things that the
press of Nevada had weaIied of
telling. The gentleman-a per-
sonal friend, and a man Of great
learning, who had published many
scientific books -replied that he
! had seen frequent mention Of the
| footprints and fossils, but had re-
garded the tales as ssmere news
paper stories" He and others
visited the place, took casts of the
footprints, and then the Academy
Of Sciences had a great row over
them, some holding that they were
human and others contending that
they were more probably made by
monster sloth. There so far as
know, the whole matter has rest
ed to this day. Had the find
occurred in Europe the world
would have been shaken with the
news, and it would have ranked in
Importance with the Neander;hal
man and the Calavaras SKULL
perhaps far exceeded them, for
nobody knows what further mys-
teries are hidden under that
sandstone hill which walls the
prison yard. Had we with us one
man of the Huxley or Tyndall
type that hill would have belong
ed TO Science long ago, and every
secret been wrested from it.
Specialists from all quarters Of
the globe would have fiocked to
the excavationsand the geology of
the region-which yet bubbles
with hot springs and mineral veins
in process of would
have become as the A, B, C's of
knowledge. But tie hill is there
yet. the colossal footprints are
beaten by the wind and weather,
while our scientists snoozs at
Berkeley or quarrel like cats over
nothing in particular at the Acad-
envy. Mackey, Fair, Jones, or
some other man who has drawn
his millions from Nevada, should |
buy that hill and hold it against |
the time when some man of |