The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1904-11-12
MoNoLlTHs OF THE WORLD
Lofty Shafts of Stone Erected in Va
rious Countries Which Are Sur
rounded with Mystery.

Among the greatest mysteries in the
mystery Of human history on earth the
monoliths that stand in various parts
of the globe have always been chief,
says the Chicago Chronicle.
These strange stone monuments, gen.
orally rude with hardly any sculpture,
but wonderfully large in size, are scat
tered everywhere. The most famous OF
them are the cram1echs, such as those
in Stonehenge in England. Others are
found in the western part of France, IN
the northern part Of Germany as lar
as the Oder river, In Denmark and IN
Sweden.
| Northern Africa, Madagascar and
Asia, from Mount Sinai and the eau
casus to India, all have some here and
there.
Lately they have been discovered even
in Siberia. There are several places in
Japan where such stones stand.
Others have been found in North and
South America Among the most won
| derful and mysterious Of them all are
the vast, almost terrifying, stones, rude
| ~ sculptured, that have been found on
lonely Easter island in the Pacific ocean.
The mystery as to what these stones
meant was not the only puzzle. The
greatest puzzle was how primitive peo-
| pie without knowledge of engineering
and without known appliances could
have moved and erected such giant
blocks, some of which weigh as much IS
| $50 tons In many districts where the
| great memorials stand there are no
| stones Of such size to be found in the
earth. Consequently they must have
| been transported from places long dis
| tances away.
For many generations. ever since men
have spent any time in thinking over
these matters, scientists have puzzled
| their heads over the monoliths in vain.
| Whether they classed them as all being
| the same, or whether they divided them
| into different classes, they remained
the same riddle.
Lately, however, there has been a sys-
tematic study of all the monolith me-
MORALS of the world, and as result a
novel theory has been advanced.
It is that one race-that OF the Phoeni-
cians-erected all these monuments.
OF course, if this is correct it means
that history will have to be revised, for
| it would show that the Phoenicians once
knew all about the whole globe, and that
they had visited America and Asia long
before modern days.
The first thing that led to the assump-
ton that the Phoenicians had raised
| the monuments was the observation OF
M. Levistres French archaeologist,
| that almost all the monoliths were to
be found near the mouths Of great rivers
| or along their courses. This pointed to
| a people that used ships
Now the Celts were never strong on
the water. Their boats were primitive,
being made mostly Of wicker work COW
cred with hides, and they were unable
| to move any distance from land in these
clumsy and unseaWorthy contrivances.
Consequently, when the question arose
| as to what race was advanced in navi-
CATION in that early time when these
monuments were put up, the answer nat
| urally came that the only race known
| to be a race Of sailors and merchants
then was the race OF Phoenicians
And II they were the Phoenicians, how
did they come to reach America? They
| had colonies on the islands of the west
ern Mediterranean and even in the is
lands Of the Atlantic ocean, as history
| proves. It is not hard to imagine that
| they may have found their way to Amer
lea.
Some arehaeologists are even willing
to believe that they reached America by
way of the lost Atlantis, that legendary
continent that is now sunken somewhere
in the Atlantic ocean, if it ever existed.
At any rate, the theory that the Phoe-
| nicians were the erectors of the mono
liths Of the world, to commemorate dis
coveries or for religious purposes, has
gained strength through the recent dis
| covery of great upright stone near the
River Loire, which has Phoenician
words engraved deeply on it. Trans
lated, these words say. "On this spot
| was slain our brave comrade."
In San Luis. in Bolivia, is one Of these
stones, which has on it the engraving
of a foot print and a snake with its head
raised. The foot print is, well-known
Phoenician symbol of death. and is
found on many stones that cover ancieAt
Phoenician burial sites And the snake
with head raised is another aeknowl-
ODD oio III T4
a march forward. Exactly the same
symbols as those on the South American
stone have been found on stone in
central France.
Temperance Vital Necessity.
BY all odds the greatest promoter
Of temperance in the last so years has