The St. Johns herald., 1895-05-09
INTERESTING RUINS.
An Americans Discoveries in Peru
 and Bolivia.
Thought to Be the Most Ancient Remains of Lower Civilization to Re Found Upon the Western
 Uemis1!iere.
Hemisphere.

Mai. William Sully Beebe, a retired erny officer living at Thompson. Conn, is about to scal to the leading archBologists of this country and Europe what he considers proofs O. some very remarkable discovcr;e3 t'Iat he has made during researches that have cost him twenty yc2rs Of stu1y and a large suAl Of money expended in novel lines of invc3{ :s2.ion. IIc be- lieves, says the New Icc.c Sr1. that his findings will convince s9icntists that A1neric1 is the scat Of an older source Of occidental civilization tban either Assyria Or Egypt. tEaj. 3eebe claims that the rctc-i that fiDuD'::hcd aroand the MediterTancan-5hc Acca- dian, thc As3yrian, the EgEPtill. tl.v Roman and the G-ce:1-1-ovc them selves to have been tsc borrowers from an earlier people On thjs conti- neat, because in the parallels that occur in the carly traces cf bota civ.li- zations the greater purity is found ia the American example,. Myths and symbols and folklore tales that E:ro- pcan students have not been able to make clear are sinlpliied when read by the light of his American discov- cries. In the journey to distant lands they haze been alt1red, copied blillIy or repeated ignorantly, he thinks, 50 that they have obtained altered or modified meanings on the other side. To give only one example: Maj. Beebe asserts that the zoiiacal sign of o4 a-. I the name of which in Peru meant an armored hare or rabbit. The sign and name remained the same wherever the armadillo 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 a bow and arrow. 1t is the same sign, Maj. Beebe says, and stands for the same constellation iD the heavens as the European symbol of a man with bow'and arrow, Sagittar- jus.
 Maj. Beebe declares the most ancient remains of former civilization on this continent to be those ruins of temples and of cities that are found in the neighborhood of Lake Titicaca, on the Rolivia-Peru border. These relies are scattered over a 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 sustcnance for more than sparse population, but there is little doubt that it's climate and it's population were. once very different 1t once supported thousands of stone cutters who could neither live nor w0-ls there now. The AyE2ara tribe Of Indians, the present inhabitants, have retained in great purity the lan- guagc they spoke when the SpaniardS conquered tho country, and at that time tho Spaniarjs took down their fables and legends in great numbers. Mai. Bcebe sent q 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 Aynaras, he is convinced that they are the rel ics of the oldest American semicivil- izatioa, and that their influence bread 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 Stonehcage, in Assyrian and Egyptian buildings, in the folklore and in the languages of many peoples.
 Of almost equal interest. to Ameri- cans is Maj. Beebe's discovery with re- gard to the photographic tablet found nt Davenport, la, and declared by Smithsonian experts to be spurious and worse than valueless. Maj Bee be declares that he is. able to read it. He says that it reproduces the sym bols and my ths of the AyInara 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 Mir. InwardS, of Lon don, foand to correspond so nearly in appearance with a miniature temple left in Assyria. Maj. Beebe has re dueed all his proofs to writing, and ar ranged the vast number of analogies that he claims to have discovered be- tween old and new world beginnings in such manner that when all are collected and presented in print and sent out, the scholars of the world may, 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 had his attention directed to those simlarities between the Israelites and our North American Indians which have been often and generally discussed.
 Grand Duchess Serge.
 Grand Duchess Serge of Russia,