Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1893-07-21
A TEXAS WONDER.
An Important Discovery Recently
Made In Wise County.
A Prehistoric Pavement of Petrifled Wood
Supposed to Have Been Constructed
by Mound Builders of an Ex-
tfnet Race.

a discovery of probably great ar
Theological value. as regards the pre-
historic people of the United States.
was recently made on the farm Of III.
Richwalls, twenty-five miles southwest
of Decatur, in Wise county, Tex. 1t
consists of a pavement of petriied
wood covering the summit of q mound
oEe and half acres in area. Samples
of the pavement were brought to the
Dallas News by d. NJ. Garvin, of Cleve-
land, O., who made the following
statement regarding the discovery:
THE mound is sixty feet high, square
shaped and with sloping sides. 1t was
looked upon as an ordinary clay struc-
ture until a short time ago, when, in
digging the soil on the summit. which
is level and measures an acre and a
half, petrifed pavement was struck
under what appeared to be shallow
deposit of drift. Further explorations
showed that the entire summit of the
mound was paved. The petrified blocks
Were laid on ends as compactly as a
Nicholson pavement In places the
pavement is perfectly smooth, while in
other places, owing to the depression
that the soil has undergone during the
ages, it is irregular. The mound,
which was constructed with mathemat-
ical precision, also contains some
blocks of stone that seem to have been
used in a building" The samples of
the pavement are four inches long, and
undoubtedly are petrifed wood. Throe
inches of their length is silica and the
remaining inch, measuring to the
wearing surface, is carbonate of lime
This combination, which is not uncom-
mon in petrifcations, shows that the
pavement was probably set in silicious
sand and that the upper part was sub
jected to the action of water contain
ing lime in solution. The blocks give
evidence of having been split by a
sharp instrument and sawed at the up
per surface. While thousands of
mounds have been discovered on this
continent this is the only one in which,
through the agency OF pctrifcation,
nature has embalmed an evidence of a
place in civilization occupied by the
mound builders fav in advance of what
had been accorded them by anti
quarians.
That this mysterious race practiced
the arts of agriculture is proved by the
| fact that mounds are so close together
in some districts as to have pendersd it
impossible for their occupants to have
subsisted by fishing and hunting; and
| that those inhabitants engaged in min
ing and commerce is proved by the dis
covery in Peruvian mounds of Lake
Superior copper. But although copper
chisels, rimmers and indented knives
THAT might have been used as saws
have been found in mounds, there
never was any proof that the mound
builders were wood workers until this
discovery in Wise county. Wood being
an article that time destroys, all its ev-
licences of the home life of the mound
| builders must necessarily have long
since been obliterated, except where
| preserved by the agency of petriflca-
| ton. While this agency in the Wise
county mound has only preserved a
beautiful pavement, it may be inferred
that people sufficiently advanced TO
execute work that in recent years
has immortalized Nicholson in the an
nails of street engineering were eapa-
| bic of raising handsome wooden tenn
| plies and other structures. That they
were not of the same race as the Indi-
ans appears from the fact that the lat
ter have no traditsen concerning the
| origin of mounds, and were they the
original mound builders, though their
| civilization subsequently perished,
| they could not have lost track of such
an important part of the history OF
| their race.
Certain it is now that the mound
builders who once thiclly inhabited
this country We're agriculturisss, me-
chanics and traders, but to find whence
came they and whittier they went one
| gropes in the darkness of the past.
Did their occupation extend back to
that period between the dawn of man s
creation and the Noachan deluge? Re-
mains of man have been found in this
country that point to antediluvian an
tlquity piece of basket mating
was found in an island in Vermillion
bay Louisiana, below the remains of
an elephant; tse remains of masto-
don, partly wasted, were found in Mis-
souri,, and in excavating for gas works
in New Orleans q human skeleton
was found below the remains of four
cypress forests, the accumulation, in
the opinion of scientists, requiring
fourteen thousand years to form. The
geological age in which the pavement
on the mound in Wise county petrified
is live subject of inquiry and doubt
less win be disputed. Was it during
the period in which a great chain of
lakes extended from the Gulf of Mex
leo northward, or when was it? 1t
was Horace Greeley who undertook to
write up mound for his paper, but
after all he could tell about it was con-
tanned in the words: "It is here" He
had not seen the Wise county mound.