Waterbury evening Democrat., 1891-04-16
PREHISTORIC MAN.
Recent Remarkable Finds in North
 western America.
Ancient Sculptures Which Indicate the Former Existence of . Superior Raco of Which No Ira
 dltion Remains.

James Terry has just published de- scriptions and photographs of some ot the most remarkable works of pre- historic man yet discovered on the American continent, says Alfred K. Wallace in Nature. They represent three rude, yet bold, characteristic and even lifelil1e sculptures of simian heads, executed in basalt. One of these be- longs to the author, one to T. Condon and the third to Prof. O. c. Marsh, who referred to 1t in his address "On Verte- brate Life in America" in the follow ing terms: t'On the Columbia river l have found evidence of the former ex- istence of inhabitants much superior to the Indians at present there, and of which no tradition remains. Among many stone carvings which saw there yvere n number of heads which so strongly resembled those of apes that the likeness at once suggests itself. Whence came these sculptures and by whom were they made?" Unfortunate ly we have no detailed information as to the conditions under which these specimens were found except that ''thcy would be classed as surface finds from the fact that the shifting sand dunes, which were largely utilized for burial purposes, are continually bringing them to the surface" This gives no indication of their antiquity, but is quite compatible with any age which their other characteristics may suggest.
 The size of the heads varies from 8 to 10 inches in total height, and from 5N to oH inches in height. The three are so different from each other that they appear to represent three distinct ami mals; and, so far as can judge, they all differ considerably from the heads of any known anthropoid apes. In par ticular. the nostrils are much farther from the eyes and much nearer to tho mouth than in any of the apes. In this respect they are more human; yet the general form of the head and face, the low and strongly ridged forehead, and the ridges on the head and checks seem to point to very low type of anthro- poid. In letter to Mir. Terry, MT. Con- don suggests "that they were copied from the fgurehead of some Malay proa that may have been wrecked on the coast;" but such supposition is quite inadmissiblc, since nothing at all re- sembling these heads Is ever carved on hd1dy pEOdSp Auu bhSIC 1S uo TSASOu uO believe that If such a.carving did come into the possession of the natives they would ever think of copying 1t in stone; while these sculptures were found two hundred miles from the coast, on the east side of the Cascade mountains.
 Taking into consideration the enor- nous antiquity of the stone mortars and human remains found ill the auriferous gravels of California, buried under tho ancient lava streams and associated with a fora and fauna altogether different from that of any part of America at the present time, MT. Terry's own conclu- sion appears the more probable. It is, 1 ''either that the animals which these carvings represent once existed in the Columbia valley, or that, in the remote past, a migration of natives from some region containing these monkeys reached this valley and left one of the vivid impressions of their former sur roundings in these imperishable sculp- tures." The latter alternative appears to me, for many reasons, to be highly improbable; and though the former will seem to many persons to be still more | improbable, am inclined provisionally | to accept it.