The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1905-10-10
OLD TIME MYSTERIES
SOME RIDDLES IN LIFE THAT HAVE
NEVER BEEN SOLVED.

ed to Have Dfsappeared-The Leg
end of the Lost Alta ntis-The An
cient Pygmies of Tennessee.
The public appetite Graves nothing
SO much as a riddle, a secret to guess,
but nowadays every mans life is so
bare, so exploited, and we live SO much
out of doors from the cradle to the
grave that very few facts or fancies
can be kept hidden. There were, how
ever, certain mysteries which during
the last century the American public
pondered and worried over which are
yet unsolved and, except by few old
people, are almost forgotten.
One of these, perhaps the oldest, is
the question whether beneath the At
lantic not far from the Bahamas there
is sunken continent known to the
Greeks as the lost Atlantis 1t was
still talked of Familiarity in the first
half of the last century. Seafaring
men declared that when the water was
calm and clear they had caught
glimpses of ancient cities beneath. with
their glittering roofs and spires. and
that in certain conditions of the atmos-
phere the tolling Of the bells could be
distinctly heard. Treatises were writ
ten by learned professors to prove the
probability of the legend, and other
treatises, as learned and vehement, to
fout and jeer at it as an idle fable.
Certain hotsam and jetsam, which
was washed ashore after heavy storms
on the coasts of Georgia and Florida
logs of strange woods unknown to this
generation, coins, bits of carved marble
and beaten brass-was ascribed to the
long dead worhmen of Atlantis.
The lost colony is now known only
as the subject Of an ancient fable. but
years ago it was by most educated
people believed to be an actual fact.
Another much discussed mystery
then was what had become of the col
ony Of civilized people who at the time
Of the settlement of the country lived
on the western coast of Greenland.
That country is, as you will see by
glance at the map, shaped something
like the half Of an egg. cut lengthwise,
the fat side upon the earth, the point
to the south The rounded center is
heap of impenetrable ice mountains.
AS the centuries go by enormous
bodies of ice slip from it into the sea
and, breaking off, drift slowly down
along our coasts. These are the ice
bergs of the Atlantic ocean. Now,
along the narrow slip of habitable land
which edges Greenland on this side,
tradition says, once dwelt civilized
people who, both in knowledge and the
habits of life, were far in advance of
the Laplanders-
They were well known to the early
Danish navigators, who made frequent
mention Of them in their logs and re-
ports The question yet unanswered is,
Where are they now? Tradition among
the Laplanders reports that the whole
colony two centuries ago emigrated in
body to the eastern coast Of Green
land, attempting to cross the hitherto
| impenetrable masses of ice in the cen
ter No tidings ever have come back
from them Some Of the scientific men
who accompanied the Hayes expedi-
ton made this question a matter of
special study. They reported that a
doubt could hardly exist that these
people did once inhabit that part of the
coast and that they now had utterly
vanished. If they had been swept
away by a pestilence their household
belongings at least would be left to tell
of them, but not shard of pottery,
not a single grave. remains to show
that they ever lived. 1t was supposed
by the Danish missionaries that they
had persisted in the ranges of Ice
mountains, but among the Laplanders
there were traditions that they had
safely reached the western coast and
settled there, now forming a civilized
community, wholly isolated from the
rest of the world. One of Nansen's
voyages was, in fact, directed to that
coast In the hope of finding this col
ony He was not able to reach the
northern part of the coast, and the
mystery is therefore yet unsolved.
Another problem which perplexed the
last generation was the long extinct
pygmy race which centuries ago I'M
| doubtedly inhabited the Tennessee
mountains. Legends among the In
dams told of such a tribe of dwarfs,
who were supposed to be of more in
telligence than the red men. But these
legends were very hazy. A burying
ground however, actually was discov-
cred in the early part of the last cen
fury in which all of the skeletons were
of pygmy proportions. Some Of them
were carried away to college museums.
But as far as know no scientific in
quiry has ever been directed to this
question.
| Another curious matter which caused
much speculation in the early part of
the last century was the fate of the
colony of French emigres who fed to
this country in the eighteenth century
and took refuge in the northern part
of Alabama. Like those Frenchmen
who found safety in Delaware, they
were for the most part of noble blood.
Marquises and counts earned their liv-
ing in Wilmington as dancing masters
and even chefs. and their descendants
live there still.
But the poor gentlefolk who went
penniless to Alabama to escape the
guillotine penetrated the wilderness
and made up a colony of vine growers,
farmers, etc. They worked helplessly
awhile, starved and then melted away
mysteriously. Whether they returned
to ungrateful France or died In their
exile nobody knows. 1t was a ro-
mantle tragical question which much
interested the last generation and is
now forgotten. But it Is still I'M
answered.-New York Herald
The ShiI1aIah.
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tional weapon Of defense, was original
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