Arizona republican., 1901-03-16
VALUABLE DISCOVERIES.
British Columbia Exploring Ground for
 Relies.

for some years bsen a favorite eXplor-
 ing ground for ethnologistS, who are
 collecting material about the Indians or
 the region Owing to contact With the
 whites the native stock of Indians is
 fast disappearing. and with them their
 curious ceremonies and customs
 Of the scientific investigators who are
 making study of tins region a number
 have noted their heaps of rocks of va
 rying size, for which they could find no
 adequate explanation. Some consider
 them to be freaks of geological upheav-
 al, while others believe that the present
 Indian inhabitants had piled them up
 for some ceremonial purpose, though
 the Indians deny any Knowledge of them. Last summer Prof. Harlan l.
 Smith, of the Jesup North Pacific eX-
 petition, tore apart a number of these
 mounds. and the result is an interest ing and valuable addition to American
 ethno!ogy.
 Every mound explored by Prof. Smith
 was found to be a tomb in which had
 been buried an individual of a race
 whose history is an entire blank, whose very existence has hitherto been un-
 known to ethnologists. This style of
 burial is not known in the earliest rec
 ords of any 2f the northwestern coast
 peoples. One of the unusual and pug
 zlinS' features of the discovery is the
 fact that the explorers have not been able to cull from the enduring stone sepulchers a single definite fact as to
 the identity of the race now vanished
 from the face cf the earth. No ar chitectural remains or ruins were found
 which might have been inhabited by these people. and the Indians who today
 inhabit that region have no traditions or legends regarding them. Prof. smith
 believes that the race was of a lower form of civilization that the cliff dwell CTS or mound builders, and that it was beyond question extinct long before the advent of the whites
 The excavations began in the south- eastern part of Vancouver Island, F. C., and in the San Juan group and Whidby islands, state of Washington A whole series of the ma ssive stone tombs each containing single skele- ton, was found Some of the skeletons were in state of good preservation; I great number of the burial places, ex- tending we'll down into the state of Washington, indicated that at one time the race that practiced this form of sepulture must have been numerical
 y strong and politically powerful. Prof. smith spent three months of the past summer in uncovering and exam ming some hundred of these old burials. which had escaped the serious attention of previous investigators. He thus de- scribes these ancient tombs, which are technically termed cairns:
 They are from six to twenty-five feet in diameter and generally consist of an irregular pile of boulders, many of which are of huge size, weighing sever al tons and requiring the strength of four men with crowbars to dislodge them. Tnese structures are usually on slopes with gravelly soil strewn with irregular powders. They overlook and In m st cases are near the sea, and the graves in each group are about twenty-five feet apart. They are usually located within a mile or so of shell heaps, As these latter are very numerous all along the coast, their proximity Is thought to imply probably q historic relation between the two kinds of structures. One stone tomb is found over each body.
 "The entrance is composed of more or less rectangular opening, formed by placing the straightest side of several boulders inward and covering the open ing thus formed with two or more slab chaped rocks of like character. In some cases the vault is not we'll form ed, and In other instances the cover stones are SO small that they do not form a projecting roof over the body. | this vault-like opening the rough pile | of stone is reared. IL Is frequently bounded by single row of large stone, | while the filling between this wall and i the vault Is of small fragments, boul- l ders and in some cases largely of soil | pr mixtures of these mat tarials. Rec l tangular tombs have been found where l the outer row of rocks has been carried | up so as to form a retaining wall mak- | Ing the whole structure similar to a ! pyramid. Structures were l also found in which the body was plac- | ad at the side of | large boulder and | covered with smaller ones piled up | against the large rocks The stones forming the interior sepulcher and ! those of the outer row are often imbed- ! led deep in the soil around the grave It Is probable that they were not so placed in the beginning, but sank to | this position by reason of their large size and great weight.
 "The position of the skeletons shows that the body was placed on the side md was deposited either on the orig nal surface or in a shallow hole dug nto the gravel below. In some of the graves the skeletons were found sunk our feet and greatly decayed. In many complete skeletons were partly burned. put it is thought that the burning did lot take place in the grave"
 The largest number of these tombs were. found on land belonging to the Hudson Bay company, about four miles northeast of Victoria near Cadboro bay n this vicinity was evidently the cap, tai of the mysterious race of rock tomb builders, for the graves here seemed to lave reached the highest type of devel- ,pment.
 The sepulchers north and south from his point seem to have undergone notifications as the distance increas- ,d. Those made of the largest bcuders