Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-06-07
POPULAR SCIENCE.
NEARNESS OF THE STONE AGE
IN TEXAS.
risinaI Factory-Greatesi Engineering
Work-Eiectricity in Tar-Hats as
= Medicine Lighting Trains.
Science in Germany.

| 1t would now appear that the ''stone age
| of man may have come down nearer to the
| present time IN Texas than in any other
| section of North America. Professor Robert
7. Hill says, in the American Geologist for
June, that no region of country can present
such ideal conditions for aboriginal nomadic
existence as the lower cretaceous hills of
Central Texas, and here the Comanches,
HuecOs, Lipans and kiowas for many cen
turtles lived what must have been a most per-
feet savage life. In these plateaus and mesas
is an extensive development of flint nodUleS,
j clear translucent variety, resembling in
every Theological aspect the cretaceous
tiints of Europe. The region has many
springs and water holes, and near any of
them can be found workshops where the
Indian manufactured spear and arrow
heads. The prevalent method seems to
have been to rudelv fashion the nodules
into turtle backs at the flint beds, usually
near the escarpments of the mesas, aud
then to convey their unfinished products TO
the water holes where they could be finally
shaped at leisure.
Near an old Comanche trail in Western
Travis county nearly every flint seems to
have been broken or tested, and numerous
failures are found which the old school
arch2logist would vow are perfect types OF
European paleolithic implements. But Mr..
Hill has obtained numerous evidences that
the implements were manufactured in this
century. not only from the fact that the i'm
plements are always ON the surface and
never buried, but from ocular witnesses 10
the fact that the Comanches and other
tribes actually used them in their warfare
with the white men.
-
Speaking ofthose Indian workshops leads
one into anainclination to speculate Is TO
whether orxpt there were implement-mak-
ing mechanics among those Indians. who
piled their trade as mechanics do now; or
did each party make his own implement
when he wanted one. We are rather of the
opinion that there were mechanics. and also
dealers in merchandise of this character.
Anyhow, we know there were boards of
such implements. In 1850 freshet in the
Ohio river cut off the soft bank of the
stream at Leavenworrh Ind, exposing
and arrow heads-enough to have measured
at least three bushels. They were about
four feet below the common surface of the
river bottom, and had been buried there,
evidently We examined the deposit with
great care, but found nothing to indicate
the age in which the implements had been
placed where found.
-
In 1869, while working the Indian an
tiquities of Tennessee under the Smith
sonian Institution, we found in a narrow
rocky valley near the Tennessee river
point where there was a ton OF more of flint
fragments and defective flint implements.
They all laid within radius of about forty
feet. There were no fints in the forma-
tons of that region, consequently the ma
terials worked must have been transported
from considerable distances. Neither was
there any natural reason for why all the In
dams should have performed their flint
at that particular point, as there
were other similar valleys near at hand and
an abundance of water everywhere The
only apparently reasonable hypothesis,
then, at which we could arrive, was that we
had found the site of an extensive aborigi-
nal plant for the manufacture of flint i'm
elements. Our report setting forth this
notion was fully Endorsed by the late Pro-
lessor Henry, then in charge of the Smith
'onian Institution. -.
One OF the worlds greatest engineering
works now in progress is the building of .
gigantic reservoir to supply Bombay with
water. The dam will be two miles long,
is feet high and 103 feet wide at the base.
The scientific papers tell US that France
has been trying electric motors for ele-
rating and depressing heavy guns, and for
moving them into direction. using a sepa-
rate motor for each of the two operations.
A considerable saving of time is effected.
Three war vessels for Chill now being
built in France are 70 be fitted with such