Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1893-09-15
AND BOATS
Of Every Shape in Transporta-
ton Building
FROM THE YEAR 81 DOWN TO DATE.

FROM THE YEAR 81 DOWN TO DATE.
Furious Articles Used in transportation
from All Parts of the World-Grsatcst
Collection liver Under One Roof-Fun
with Curved Mirrors-A Few Foreigners
"Civilize" Too Rapidly.
WORLDS FAIR, Sept. - Especial. -
Evolution is the leading idea of this age
and many are influenced by it much more
than they suspect. nnearly all the main
buildings here one will find the exhibits
so arranged RS to show the slow develop
ment through all the ages from the cave
OF the original t%raglodyte to the palaces of
Fifth avenue, from the rude dug-out of
the autochthon to the wonderful ocean
steamer and from the wooden-headed
Gods of Alaska to the lovely creations in
the art palace. We have here the races Of
mankind from the cultured Brooklynite
down to some Africans who nave no word
for any number beyond a hundred; where
man ends the trained animals in the great
plaisance show take up the links, and
Professor Gernier has sent from Africa to
the congress Of sciences a promise that by
the next worlds fair he will nave the Ian
guage OF the apes reduced to writing and
give us an outline Of their civil constitu-
tions and forms of government.
Those who have read the new Genesis.
according to Tyndall, Huxley, Spencer
and Darwin will remember the statements
c'interesting, but tough,' as Huck Finn
said), that when the primordial ape had
assembled the family tree so high that he,
IN a measure, got rid of his tail he de-
scended to earth, organized the primitive
commonwealth, developed into an anthro-
pold ard by natural selection and survival
OF the fttest evolved the anthropomorphic
primordial types-the homunculus, the
prognathus, the troglodyte, the autoch-
thon and the tarregen. These were the
generations of primeval man, and terragen
was the father of the aborigine. Well,
we have them all here, alive or stuffed or
shown in rude carvings by the first men,
who were contemporary with them, and
j n the Transportation building we have
the history of their progress in that line.
And the order of the use made of animals
was evidently this: First, the dog and
then the OK, the ass and the horse in sue
cession, with camels, llamas, buffaloes and
elephants in their native regions.
The visitor entering that building at the
north end comes first upon an all-wooden
Mexican cart with two of those long
horned oxen hitched, and the whole get-up
is SO comically natural, so exactly like the
vehicle as I saw it in Mexico, that l almost
expected to hear the shrill "Caramba!
Viejo, cabron, carramba!'' as one hears it
in Mexico. In these carts one finds what
was undoubtedly the primitive form of the
wheel-that is a cross section cut out of a
tree, the toughest wood the barbarian
could find of course. 1t was a great day
for civilization when some mar invented
a way to hollow out the center of the
wheel and make it much lighter while re-
tanning its strength; but when hub, spoke
and felloe were completed there was civil
%ization, indeed.
In the same line is the bullock cart from
Siam, the rude country cart from Turkey,
the heavy wheels from Santa Domingo
and the specimens from Malacca, upper
India and South Africa. But all these
have hub and spokes, though of very rude
construction, which increases the wonder
that the solid wheel should still be in use
in Mexico. In brides, saddles and spurs
all these nations show far greater i'm
provements, which may be due to the fact
that they used them long before they did
vehicles. But the interesting fact is that
in water transportation they reached per-
lection, that is on a small scale, almost at
the start. The light boats of the Malays,
the canoes of the South seas, the caiques,
the little Siamese skiffs and even the
kajak (they spell it in several other ways)
of the Esquimaux are about as good for
their purposes as civilized men could
make.
United States Consul Merrill, of Jerusa-
lem, has sent a boat used on the sea Of
Gallilee which he maintains is of identi-
cally the same pattern as that used by the
apostolic fishermen of the year 81 and
thereabouts. If so, Peter and Andrew
must have been very skiliful boatmen, for
l should hate to trust myself in it. He
has also sent a complete Jerusalem trans
portation exhibit, consisting of the leather
bottles for carrying oil, wine and water,
water jars to be carried on the head,
waterskiDs, small hand jugs of terra Gotta,
plaques and other covers for the vessels in
which food is carried, and a variety of
baskets and panniers as used by hucksters.
The absence of ornament on these things
calls to my mind the alleged fact that
there has never been a time when art
fourished in Palestine and raises the
question whether the prohibition so long
enforced among the Jews and tacitly &C.
cepted by their successors has wrought an
organic change in the people. l do not
Just now remember the name of any great
Jewish painter or sculptor, though there
may be such.
Far more interesting are the palan-
quins, sedan chairs and other appliances
used where man is the carrier of man and
woman, and of all these the most interest
Ing is the Madagascar palanquin used by
Madame Reconstruction in her long jour
ney in Africa in 1891. During most Of tho
time she went afoot, directing the course
of the column, and only used this palan-