The Wichita daily eagle., 1893-11-23
INTERESTING RUINS.
An Americans Discoveries in Peru
and Bolivia.
Thought to BE the Most Ancient Remains
of Lower Civilization to BE Found
Upon the Western
Hemisphere.


Upon the Western
Hemisphere.
Mai. William Sully Beebe. retired
army officer living at Thompson,
Conn. is about to send to the leading
archaologists of this country and
Europe what he considers proofs OF
some very remarka BILE discoveries that
he has made during researches that
have cost him twenty years of study
and large sum OF money expended in
novel lines Of investigat ton. lie be-
lieves, says the New York Sun, that
his findings viii convince scientists
that America is the seat of an older
source of occidental civilization than
either Assyria or Egypt. Maj. Beebe
claims that the races that fourished
around the Mediterranean-tk Acca-
dian, the Assyrian, the Egyptian. the
Roman and the Greek-prove them
selves to have been the borrowers
/ from an earlier people on this CONT
! ncnt, because in the parallels that
| occur in the early traces of both civili-
cations the greater purity is found in
the American examples. Myths and
! symbols and folklore tales that Euro
! pean students have not been able to
make clear are simplified when read
| by the light of his American discov-
cries. Ia the journey to distant lands
they have been altered. copied blindly
or repeated ignorantlv, he thinks, so
/ that they have obtained altered or
modified meanings on the other side.
/ To give Only one example: Maj. Beebe
! asserts that the Zodiacal sign Of
! Sagittarius was at first an arInadillo,
/ the name of which in Peru meant an
arTnorad hare or ra bbit. The sign and
name remained the same wherever the
arfnadillo was known, but by the time
the symbol reached northern Mexico
and the region of our states it became
changed to an armed rabbit"-a rab-
bit carrying bow and arrow. 1t is
the same sign. Maj Beebe says. and
stands for the same constellation in
the heavens as the European symbol of
a man with bow and arrow, Sagittar-
ius
Maj. Beebe declares the most ancient
remains of former civilization on this
,
and of cities that are found in the
neighborhood of Lake Titicaca. on the
Bolivia-Peru border. These relics are
scattered over great extent of coun-
try and reveal remarkable skill in
stone cutting, in architecture and in or
nament This region is fourteen thou
sand feet above the sea level and too
cold to provide sustenance for more
than sparse population, but there is
little doubt that its climate and it's
population were once very different.
1t once supported thousands of stone
cutters who could neither live nor
work there now. The Aymara tribe
Of Indians, the present inha abitants,
have retained in great purity the Ian
guage they spoke when the Spaniards
conquered the country, and at that
time the Spaniards took down their
fables and legends in great numbers.
Maj. Beebe sent a capable man there
to verify the old observations and
make new ones, and, after study Of
eight other American tongues and
people to the north of the Aymaras,
he is convinced that they are the rel
les of the Oldest American semicivil-
ization, and that their influence spread
over North America. Proofs of this
he claims to have found as far away as
Iowa and New Jersey. He asserts
that there are in Egypt, and, for that
matter, all around the Mediterranean,
the most evident Implications of the
work of these Aymaras in dials like
that at Stonehenge, in Assyrian and |
Egyptian buildings. in the folklore and |
in the languages of many peoples.
OF almost equal interest to Ameri- I
cans is Maj. Beebe's discovery with re-
gard to the Photographic tablet found |
at Davenport, Ia, and declared by /
smithsonian experts to be spurious I
and worse than valueless. Maj. Bee
be declares that he is able to read it.
He says that it reproduces the sym
bols and myths of the Avmara Indians,
and tells the same stories that are
conveyed by means of the great dial
temple at Tia Huanacu in their coun-
try-the same that Mr.. Inwards. of Lon
ion, found to correspond so nearly in
appearance with a miniature temple
iuced all his proofs TO writing. and ar
-anged the vast number OF analogies
that he claims to have discovered be-
tween old and new world beginnings
n such manner that when all are
collected and presented in print and
sent out, the scholars of the world
nay, with the least possible trouble,
eXamine his work and judge his claims.
He is man of leisure and Of means,
who in taking up the study of Hebrew
lad his attention directed TO those
between the Israelites
md our North American Indians
which have been oftel and generally
discussed.
Severe Laws In Small Republic.
1t is said that San Marino. the dimin-
utive Italian repu bile, and the Oldest
government of it's kind in existence.
has the most severe criminal laws of
any civilized country known There's /
have the right hand chopped off. and
,,-.l. /.