The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-06-30
AN rMronrANr rao,nrcr

The University Of Nebraska has in contemplation a movement which may be productive of results of the great est importance, not only to archaeology. but to all branches of allied science. It is proposed to send an expedition of scientists out to wyoming. and pos sibly to other portions of that wonder full region, for the purpose of making thorough investigation into the pre- historic treasures abounding there. For half a century or more. as most the remains of immense animals fowls, reptiles and other monsters oI a long-past cl;od of time Flow they existed. and how. when and why they disappeared are questions on which wise men differ. It Is only known as certainty that they were once num- erous throughout that region and that they disappeared, leaving their works and buried remains to puzzle the scientists of our day.
 But that IS not all nor the most wonderful aL1cunccn. ent that com from that ccuntrs. for it Is claimed that evidences have been found of the existence of remarkable people who existed and disappeared at least three thousand years ago. Who asks The Butte (Mont) Inter Mountain, speak ing of the proposed expedition, were those strange people who roamed Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada and Utah and perhaps Nebraska and the southern Dakotas, 5000 years ago? They built great forts. formidable to the weapons of that period They worked great mines. They buried their dead in caves. not in mounds like the prehistoric peoples of Ohio and Kentucky. They built stone temples eaualing in grandeur anything in modern America These, people had a civilization nearly 5000 years before the Spaniards came to Mexico to search for gold. Their skulls and bones indicate q type far above saw agery. Did they immigrate from the old world. thousands of years before Christ, or did the occident people tn 2 orient and were these peoples the last survivors of a once populous conti- nent, borne down in the decay of their civilization by the races we call In- dian. but which merely may be the progeny of warlike adventures from Japan. oceanica and Asia"
 Some years ago some cowboys re- ported that they had seen, down in Eastern Wyoming. remains of an im- mense temple, but no scientist has yet seen 1t. One visitor to it. more ob- servant than the cowboys. says of 1t:
 "Whife looking at the surroundings I was surprised to note that the pile of what I supposed was erosive rock was in reality the ruins of, of ,. iarge, ,oH stone made an examination, and saw that the building had been originally made of roughly squared blocks so large fuired to lift one Of them. On the in- side of the dismantled walls was a sort of shrine or place where sJme,- thing like pulpit had been erecteo, roughly hewn. as though done with the crudest of implements.
 This is interesting and the com ments of The Inter Mountain are equally so. for it is on the ground, as we may say It says:
 Tn w 1aIer canyon, whicn appears ta have been the burying ground of ths people, is cave containing plles C. skulls Accretions three feet deer on all sides of the sepulchre, IS .ht cav, say the scientists Near the cave is fort built at least 5000 years ago Judging by the action of erosion on the rocks. North of the breaks of the Platte river, near the Nebraska Wyoming line, are scur great quarries One thousand Butte miners Win dyna- chinery could n1t taks out that rock in a decade. With the crude tmp'e- ments left by these people, 1t rlust have required fabulous time to de- Mont, is the remains of a similar quarry. The folklore Is that the In Gians developed 1t, to get stones for tobacco pipes; but all the people ot the worlds since creation. If each smoked, could not have employed for pipes the stone taken away and the Indian at no period of his history. ap- pears to have employed stone for any thing except war-hatchets and pipes The Pipestone quarry may be rec ord of these prehistoric Americana
 An exploring party composed ol competent scientists can hardly fail to make discoveries that will tend to throw light on the wonders of that region. It may be that these people were contemporaneous with at least some of the great animals and fowls whose remains have been found there or humanity may have followed the destruction of prehistoric animal life At all events it Is to be hoped that the result of the expedition will shed light on the question as to who and what were the real aborigines of America