The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1902-11-16
SIGNS OF A PREHISTORIC RACE
DISCOVERED AT Blue LICK
SPRINGS IN KENTUCKY.
With tn en- We're Homes OF the Mammoth
and the Mastodon-Beiow These Was
a Pavement Apparently Oldcr-Sone
supposed Hieroslyphlcs Also Found.

Explorations which have been carried on
for several years al the Blue Lick Springs
In Kentucky with persistent exCavating
on three sides Of the springs, have brought
to light what the discoveries believe to be
indisputabe evidences Of a race Of prehis-
toric men who lived thereabouts and utilized
the springs even as modern Americans
have done since the time of Daniel Boone.
From the excavations there have also
been recovered many bones Of the mastodon
and the mammoth and these have been
taken from strata which have led the cx
plorers to conjecture that the early human
race that abode in that region may have
been contemporary with those gigantic
animals
The waters Of the Blue l.icks have been
noted since the pioneer days oil Kentucky
Daniel Boone made salt at the springs
Later and for many years before and after
the Civil War the spot was famous water
ing place, rcsorted to by so many persons
that a great hotel was built there and was
tie scene Of many gay times.
The water was exported. too. Fire
destroyed the hotel in the height Of the
season OF ls9a.
About FIVE years ago the spring began to
fail and two years ago the flow almost
ceased. None knew the cause, and il was
through efforts to ascertain it that the dis
coveries Of the buried bones and evidences
Of early mans handiwork there were made
The story Of the discoveries Is told in the
Lexing on Lodder by Judge o. 5. Deming
Of Mount Olvot. The excava, ions were
made by Thomas NJ Hunter
Little did the gay jewellers and the thous-
ands Of guests before or since the war, AZ
they strol"d along tho shaded avenue
from the hotel to the canopicd spring
house" says Judge Deming, dream that
fourteen feet below the smooth paved
walk on which they trod was a stone pave
ment leading from tho spring southwark
toward the Licking River, laid by human
hands, perhaps a hundred thousand years
before, and that imbcddcd in the alluval
soil around the spring were human bones
mingled with the bones Of the mastodon
and mammoth that became extinct n
thousand centuries ago
-Old inhabitants Of the region remem-
Der, 'the Judge says, the buffalo traces that
lead to the spring from different directions.
These buffalo traces are pat hs beaten hard
several inches below the surface and are
still 10 be seen in places whore the virgin
soil has not yet been disturbed.
over them came the mastodon and
mammoth, the elk, the buffalo and bear
and other animals, probably from a great
distance. attracted hither by the salt water,
many Of which became mired in the marshy
soil around the spring"
Mr. Hunter began his digging around the
spring in 1897 on the north side. He found
there five feet below the surface. pieces
Of the kettles which Boone used to make
salt Il5 years earlier. He found also
many bones of ok, buffalo, deer, bears
and other wild animals.
He did not find the subterranean leak
which it was supposed caused the failure
Of the spring. and he began digging then
on the east and south sides Of the spring
Twelve feet below the surface no found
such huge bones that he was led to turn
his attention from the hunt for the leak
70 a search for moro Of these relics Of extinct
animal life.
The bones were found In the lower