Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1902-11-06

min Staudish Baker in the Boston Trans
Cript. The skeleton, lacking the ribs and
mast of the vertebrate, was found at the
und of a scVenty-two-foot horizontal tun-
nj cut in the side of a ravine cave.
Chance rescued it from its unscientiic dis
Covcrcrs while it was still possible to- veri-
IS tho truth Of their story of the finding.
IT, age Is estimated at not less than II. 900
years perhaps as much as 10000.
Hhc great Importance of the Lansing
skeleton lies in the definiteness with which
its Geological place can be estimated. 1t
j. not, apparently. the oldest trace of
prehistoric man. This is found in the val
ley OF the Sommc in northern France,
N.-"re in 1S41 Boucher de Perthes found
stone implements under ninety feet of
fllcial drift. These indicate the existence
ut man before the ice age. perhaps lpr, 900
years ago. Similar evidences nave been
found in other parts of Europe, and in
the south Of England. The inconclusive
nature Of these finds is due to the extreme
difficulty of tracing N western Europe the
time and nature of the glacial action
which Cannot be referred either to the
Swiss or Norwegian glacier fields.
In the glacial graVcls about Trenton
prehistoric stone implements were dis
covered by Dr. c. c. Abbott in 1871 Far
thor search increased the number of speci-
mems, brought to light three skulls which
arc believed to be prehistoric, and finally
losed what appears to be remains of
a timber pier from which the ancient man
st off in his boat to hunt the Arctic sea
a"imals which were then his neighbors
al ,s the coast of New York and New
J.. and. Here again the question of time
v e much debated, as it wa& also with
rc-lid to stone implements found in the
o. io Valley, a few miles east OF Cincin-
IT, The implements found in a thin
st,ltum covered by glacial gravels at
Little Falls, Mimi, in 1919, are of the very
lat" glacial period. Both these and the
Trenton and Ohio finds are more recent
tlaI the Lansing skeleton.
physical anthropologY--in substance the
l'r,illou system of identifying criminals
ly measurements of the buny parts of
III" hcad-Will bc called upon to decide
Watcher there is any relationship be-
tween the Lansing and Trenton skulls.
and between these and the skulls of the
,NiSting aboriginal races. A report upon
TINS side of the matter will he presented
/" the congress by Aries Hrdlicka of the
American Museum in New York, who is
'ue of the foremost Investigators along
This line. The 'cephalic indeX'-thc ra ito
of the breadth of a skull to it's length
comes IN here, and it is likely to get se-
were handling.
In the results of the Jesup expedition
which made a careful study of the print
tive tribes of Northwestern America and
Northeastern Asia, we have reached new
''' 80 ''N'Aii AZ II 81 ~ ~
of the American continent has been ac-
counted tor by all sorts of myths and
theories. One of the latter is that Asia
sent some of its people by way of the
Alaska peninsula. While this is not vet.
ard perhaps never may be settled. the
Jesup expedition has shown thai there
has been "A close connection between the
races of the two continents for a great
l,cli' DIS. Physical characteristics, lang
nag" and institutions show an unmistak-
able l;inshlp in the tribes separated by
the Northern Pacific. The only eXplana-
tion IS that the Alaskan point has been a
pathway over which tons nave
been made to east or west. Whether the
Asian stock is older than the American
is not determined. The great advance is
in showing the fact of "A common stock
over this great region of the east and west
Pacific. New world history approaches
Vaguely enough, the scat of the ancient
ArVan stock which furnishes the present
races of Europe. How much definiteness
it may attain will be more clearly shown
after some years when the Jesup data
have been fully worked out.
investigation of our living Indian and
1,sl.imo tribes has been vesy minute. and
a vast amount of material has been ac-
cumulated in museums. Among the
scores OF tribes inhabiting the Rocky
Mountain region. many are rapidly dy-
ing out, and in comparatively few years
WA ~ - " NV ll4t bIllA
hy his implements, by Photographs. color
ed masks and graphophone records of his
speech and songs The earliest systoma-
tic work in this field was lone under the
direction OF the director Of the United
states Bureau of Ethnology, Major Pow
ell He sent to army men and others in
the West records for v%ocabularies and
miscellaneous facts about the Indian
tribes and in this way a good deal Of
material was gathered. Its value was
prohlcmatic, owing to lack of training
IN most of the observers, and it has been
superseded by later work.
In later expeditions photography was
employed, and implements of every kind
were collected. a further advance was
the making of plaster masks from the live
Indian. Many OF the Indians would not
submit to having casts of their faces
made with wet plaster, which was peril
ol,sly like a bath. But half "a dollar,
sometimes a dollar-rarcly more-usuallly
tempted a victim. From the masks casts
are made and modelled into life sized busts.
These are colored with the tints of tile
live subject, supplied with the proper kind
and amount of hair-and there you have a
good Indian without having to kill him.
And by a century from now, this will be
almost the only kind of primitive Indian
cXtant.
I'm the study of the Indian languages,
both methods and results are fascinating
NAiAlI VI lf'AT II INGENUITY
If the primitive tribes would continue Ia
exist unchanged, successive generations
OF students might study the material frs
hand. But the Indian is disappearing
absolutely dyiSg out in some instances;
~ more, disappearing in a fog of semi
civilized halfbrceds. This makes neCes-
sary some phonetic record of his speech
to supplement VoCabularies and the texts
of his myths and ceremonies. Shorthand
is noh available, because it was not de
viscd for the Indian sounds, A spccia
phonetic alphabet has been devised so as
to cover all possible speech sounds; hui
tt5 D~ulkinesS-it has over LOO different
tharaCters-and the fact that only two
fonts of its type are in existence, make
it practically unusuable. In actual trans.
trihiug of the Indian speech from the lips
of the speaker, the ordinary Roman alpha.
Bot is used for sound signs, additions
marks and inverted letters serving to rep.
resent a wide range of sounds.
The graphohone has been pressed into
service to preserve the actual sound o
TIE Indian voice in speech, and hundred
Of records are slowed away in the mu
epuns. But this is merely the 'show'
side, giving a general picture of the in
donations and the rapidly or slowness o
Indian speech. without preserving th'
delicate variations in phonetic valuel
which are demanded by the comparativ
study Of the indian languages, it shout,
be noted, are worth nothing as absolute
unrelated matters of fact. Only their re
lations to each other and to the lang
uaees Of northeastern Asia can throw
any LIGHT m rana hiGtnru And this com