Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1904-02-25
ANTIQUITY OF MAN.
Alleged Pre-carboniferous Find in
Kansas.

When did man first appear on the
earth? is question which scientists
have vainly endeavored to answer,
Darwin attempted to answer the ques-
| ton, Whence came man? by tracing
| his evolution from a lower order OF
animal life, through a process of
natural selection, to the anthropoid
apes. But even the evolutionary
theory of the origin of the human
race is a controversial subject ove1
which naturalists as we'll as theo-
| logians disagree.
Anthropologists have endeavored
| to trace the antiquity of the human
of his own frame and the relics of his
| handiwork. The ages Of these relics
are determined by the geological for
nation in which they are found; And
although no positive knowledge exists
of the actual age of any geological
formation, the presumption is strong
that in whichever formation the re
mains of a human being or stray
specimen of his handicraft are found
man existed on the earth at that
period in geological history, If he did
not actually antedate it.
The best evidences of prehistoric
man have been found in England,
France, Brazil and India. The human
relics there exhumed have been usu.
ally found in the limestone caves ano
caverns. They consist chiefly of
fragments of human bones associated
with those of prehistoric animals,
such as the extinct hairy mammoth,
and crude carvings on stone and
reindeer horns, and still cruder i'm
plements of the chase and war. such
as flint arrow-heads. But it has been
generally admitted by the best au-
| thorities in such matters that all of
these evidences Of human existence
belong exclusively to post-glacial
times. That is, they belong to that
geological age when the gravel beds
and soils of the surface of the earth
were deposited as the result of the
grinding action of the ice sheet, which
I once covered a large area of the
globe, ON the underlying rock forma.
tons
The alleged discovery of human
skull at a great depth in the gravel
formation of Calaveras county gave
rise to the belief that man existed on
the earth in pre-glacial times, but the
genuineness of that discovery has al,
ways been open to doubt, and has not
been accepted as evidence of human
antiquity.
report now comes from Pittsburg.
kas.. that coal miners. engaged In
sinking a shaft for the Weir Junction
Coal company on the Rex farm south
of Cherokee. recently found 'im-
bedded in the fire clay below the
second vein of coal, at a depth of
fifty feet, box made of bark. contain
ing three arrow-heads crudely made
of flint rock If this were a genuine
discovery it would carry the age of
man from the quaternary or post
tertiary period, in which the other evil
dences of his existence have been
found through the tertiary and sec
ondary geological periods. into the
primary or paleoZoic period when the
carboniferous beds were formed. Not
a suggestion of human life has yet
been found in either the secondary or
tertiary formations; and yet if man
existed on the earth before their time
nothing would be more reasonable to
expect than the discovery of evidences
OF him in both Of them When the al
legged Kansas discovery is scientifical.
ly investigated it will doubtless re-
solve itself into hoax of the same
order as the Cardiff giant. The proof
that it is fraud is. in fact. con
tanned in the story itself, which de-
scribes the finding Of the. human
relics enclosed in box made of bark
IN 4 formation overlaid by two car.
boniferous veins. The exposure Of the
fraud lies in the answer to the ques.
tio1: How could a box made of bark
vegetable subsiance-snrvive the