Arizona silver belt., 1890-01-18
Prehis.orie nn In America.

opiuion tndI tHe Teu lHuidn Wds tue highest type of man that had been produced in what is 1ow the United States, up to tie discovery of the Western Hemisphere by Columbus. | Man has dwelt m the United States, Major Powell says, ''so far as we yet know, only during the latter halt of the Pleistocene time. There are n5 races of people occupying the country anterior to the Indian tribes. Pre- Columbia culture was indigenous; 1t began at the lowest stage of sasagery and developed to the highest, and was in many places passing into barbar- ism when the good queen sold her ! jewels" If this theory be accepted | the civilization of the mound builders is myth, and the cliff-dwellers. who of late have been invested with such an air of romanlicIsm, are resolved in to ordinary savages, such as can be i found on any reservation to-day. II cannot be denied that Major Powell is competent to treat ths subject. His character a5 q scientist has met with conspicuous recognition. Twenty.ene years ago he explored the Canyon ot the Colorado with such striking re. suits that Congress established the Typographical and Geological Survey and placed him at it's head, He sus. tains bis contention that the prehisto- FIG Amerlcan was only savage with strong argument and lngical deduc- 1 ton. The presence of man Tn the United States. be afirms. can be traced back nearly to the middle of the Gia- cial epoeii From the earliest time there has been a gradual development of the arts. Nowhere is any great bseak found, nowhere Is higher eui ture interpoldted, and nowhere do we find evidence of peoples ether than the North American Indians and their ancestors. The mound builders arts are toand to be identical. and Major Powe! claims that relics winch haze i been secured which seemed to reveal | bigher civilization than the North American Indians possessed were ibe ' products of white meH-for hls gener- al proposition e that some of the mounds have been constructed in his | torical times--since l492 while ear Her explorer, and settlers found many actually used by tribes of North Anne. rican Indians. To cultivate iheir business and make greater profits, white men hsding with aborigines irgeniouSly manufactured with civil ized appliances those things held in most raue by tbe Indians. "ihey offered stone pipes more beautifully carved than the art ofth Indian could compass, and stone tonahawgs, stone knives, and she'll beads; and these were traded 10 the Indians for the pei tries they brought from the forest and the prairie" These implements have been found scattered in mounds con structed in historical times, so il chan ces that unskiled arch3ologists are collecting many beautiful things in copper, stone, and shell which were made by white men and traded 10 the Indians. As ruthleSsly as he demol- ishes the theory of the elvihzation of the mound builders. does Major Powell address himself to the task of proving that the cllti-dweilers were kindred n 1 culture and no better advanced in the arts and sciences than were the In- dian tribes discovered by white men near the coast. In fact the more an cient of the cliff dwellers' rulns are so rude when compared with others. that 1t Is evident the culture of the race reached its highest developlatnt about the time ot the discovery of America. The sum and substance of Major Pow els paper is that the highest tyre of life on the Western Hemisphere of which history furnishes record was furnished hy the tribes found by the l Spaniards Albany Press.
 Since the unprecedented rains, ex- tending over the entire State, Calitor. nia newspapers have discovered that l humidity is conducive to health, as