Waterbury evening Democrat., 1893-06-30
A TEXAS WONDER.
An Important Discovery Recently
Made IN Wise County.
q Prehistoric Pavement OF Petrihed Wood
Supposed to Have Been Constructed
by Mound Builders of an Ex-
tinct Race.


Supposed to Have Been Constructed
by Mound Builders of Ex-
tinct Race.
A discovery of probably great ar
cheological value, as regards the pre-
historic people of the United States,
was recently made on the farm of II.
Richwalls, twenty-five miles southwest
of Decatur, in Wise county, Tex. It
consists of a pavement of petrifed
wood covering the summit of mound
one 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, petrified 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 petrifed blocks
were laid on ends as compact1y as a
Nicholson pavement. In places the
pavement 10 perfectly smooth, while in
other places, owing to the depression
that the soil has undergone during the
| ages, it 10 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. Three
inches of their length is silica and the
| remaining inch, measuring to the
wearing surface, is carbonate of lime.
l This combination, which is not uncom-
mon in petrifications, 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 petrifcation,
nature has embalmed an evidence of a
place in civilization occupied by the
mound builders far in advance of what
had been accorded them by anti
| quarians.
L
the arts Of agriculture is proved by the
fact that mounds are so close together
in some districts as to have rendered it
4 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 it's ev-
licences of the home life Of the mound
builders must necessarily have long
since been obliterated, except where
preserved by the agency of petrifica-
ton. While this agency in the Wise
county mound has only preserved a
beautiful pavement, it may be inferred
that a people sufficiently advanced to
execute a work that in recent years
has immortalized Nicholson in the an
nails of street engineering were capa-
BILE of raising handsome wooden tenn
pies and other structures. That they
were not of the same race as the Indi-
ans appears from the factathat the lat
ter have no tradition concerning the
origin of mounds, and were they the
original mound builders, though their
civilization subsequently persisted,
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 thiclzly inhabited
this country were agriculturists, me-
shanics and traders, but to find whence
Fcame 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 mans
creation and the Noachan deluge? Re-
mains of man have been found in this
country that point to antediluvian an.
tiquity. A piece of basket mating
was found in an island in Vermillion
bay Louisiana, below the remains Of
an elephant the remains of masto
! don, partly wasted, were found in Mis-
souri,, and in excavating for gas works
In New Orleans a human skeleton
was found below the remains of foul
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 petrifie6
Is a live subject Of inquiry and doubt
: less will be disputed. Was it during
= the period in which great chain o!
: lakes extended from the Gulf of Mex
!, leo northward, or when was it? L
: was Horace Greeley who undertook t.
write up mound for his paper, bu
;, after allh could tell about it was con
!. tanned in the words: SIT is here" HI
. had not seen the Wise county mound.
a Very Formal