The representative., 1900-09-27
PREHISTORIC ! TEXANS
ENGULEEH BY FLOOD
pER1sHED LIKE VII VICTIMS OF THE
RECENT D1sAsrER At GAL
vk.3on.

KGAAShND AAAA vACIAMS OF 314E
RECENT D1sAsrEER AT GAL
vE.3sos.
Bones Of This Mystertous People Were
Recently UneartAea and Will he
Exhibited at the Pan-American Ex-
position ut Bu6ale-A Find of Re-
narkable Archaeological Interest.
BUFFALO, Sept. 25.-By a singular
coincidence a most interesting discovery
was made at Galveston, Texas, just prior
to the great flood which devastated that
fair Southern city. It was in connection
with excavations in which relics were
procured for the archaeological exhibit
at the Pan-American exposition and in
dicated that in some far distant age,
when the lands bordering the gulf were
peopled by race long since perished
from the face of the earth, a similar
tempest overwhelmed the unfortunate
residents of the coast. 1t must have de-
stroyed them by Thousands just as peo-
pie were destroyed when the hurricane
and food descended upon Galveston in
the recent calamity which has aroused
for the stricken city the sympathy Of
its sister cities of the whole American
union.
The bones discovered In this search
for Pan-American relics are beyond q
doubt several thousand years old. They
are Of prehistoric race and the char
acter of the people who occupied the
coast of the Gulf at that period is an In
teresting subject for speculation. Who
ever they may have been and whenever
they may hare lived. the remains found
show beyond question that some ter
rible outbreak of nature caused the sud-
den death of thousands of these ancient
people and their burial in the strata
where by chance they were discovered
and their existence reported to archaeo-
logfsts working in the interests of the
Pan-American exposition at Buffalo just
a few days before another awful food
submerged the city of Galveston and
swept to sudden and trrible death
thousands of it's citizens, destroying also
millions o(dollars worth of property.
1t was but short time ago that the
excavations were begun which resulted
in these singular and extraordinary dis
coveries. The flndfngIof the remains
in the first place was quite accidental.
Mr.. H. j. Simmons, superintendent of the
Arizona and New Mexico railway, who
is friend of Supt. A, l. Benedict of the
Pan-American exposition department Of
ethnology and archaeology, was making
excavations along the lines of this rail-
road near Clear creek. Galveston coun-
ty. for railroad purposes, when bones
were found in the earth removed. On
examination of the contents of the steam
shovel skulls and human teeth were no.
ticed and further search led to the dis
gether with ivory beads and other OBJ
jects of human handiwork.
Realizing the valuable and scientific
character of the find systematic search
Biologists say that this whole section
was once covered by the Gulf of Mexico.
The idea at once came to Mr.. Simmons,
on learning the extensive character OF
the human remains, that in the far dis
tant past tidal wave had occurred at
the time the gulf covered more of that
part of the county than at present and
that these bones were the remains Of the
thousands of human beings who had
been drowned in the overflow of the
waters of the Gulf.
Evidently these people were not mere
barbarians, living scattered thinly over
the country in temporary abodes and
having no permanent abiding place. The
number of the skeletons and their close
proximity to one another indicates that
there existed here a populous COM
munity, and that in some far away age
people devoted to the pursuits of in
dustry and more or less skilled in the
arts, were here living in a city having
its institutions of government and So
cial customs and some degree of civiliza-
ton. This could not have been simply
the cite of cemetery, for the positions
In which the skeletons were found
proves conclusively that the persons
were not buried after natural death
but were drowned and afterwards buried
beneath the debris of the CONFUSION, or
hurriedly and in wholesale buried by
their survivors, as was done recently at
Galveston. While all the skeletons were
lying down, some were face up, others
face down, and many on the side. There
was no regularity in their burial at ALL
1t was the exception to find one skeleton
by itself. Usually two and sometimes
three and four were found together, in
some instances as many as IA being piled
in heap, as if whole family had gath
cred to meet death, and perished in one
another's arms
Some of the skulls of these prehistoric
Texans were of enormous size and the
majority OF them had rather low fore
heads. singular fact observed was
that while all of the teeth were consid-
erably worn, showing the use of hard
food and age of e5persons there was
in no case the slightest instance of de-
cay, quite different situation from that