The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-07-22
SUNDAY, JULY az, 1906.
A vANDALIC ACT.

It is great pity that the white m@ople. not only the early settlers, but those of the present. took no more pains to preserve the relics and re- mains of a former civilization, how ever near to absolute savagery that civilization may have approached. Leav- Ing out the really remarkable works of the Aztecs, Toltecs and other early Inhabitants of the Central American America many minor evidences of the skill and ingenuity of those who were here before us, consisting of carvings, paintings and other articles of Indian handiwork of various kinds. Many of these would have been, and would now be invaluable to the archaeologist, be- cause in many cases they would help to clear up disputed points which may never be settled. Yet these evidences of the past are often destroyd with as little thought as the pioneers would cut down tree that stands in his way. The Brooklyn Eagle thus refers to one of the latest examples:
 Near Hillsboro, Pa, there stood for years s'the Painted Rock" a relic and landmark, strangely carved by pro- historic tribes and decorated with fG ures of animals. including a kangaroo. which makes 1t appear either that the early settlers In this country knew of the kangaroo by tradition, or that the animal was once to be found on this continent. The rock was of extreme interest to ethnologists and historisus. and was in sundry ways the most im- portant of all the Indian remains in America But the owner blew It up with dynamite to stop the excur- uions over his farm. He was weary of having scientists and photographers 4rampling down his hay.
 We have often heard and read of the Painted Rock as one of the singular relics of past race which moderns have been unable to explain or account Tor. Whether those who painted and engraved it were really a prehistoric race or belonged to the less remote past cannot be known. perhaps, but the stone itself was much too valuable to have thus been destroyed. It was an act of vandalism for which there was not a shadow of excuse, and there should be some law to punish a man for such a deed even if the rock was on his own land.
 It may be argued that the scientists who knew of this relic and were in- ., aerested in 1t should have purchased it and placed 1t in a safe place. Perhaps ahe owner of the property would not sell, or his price may have been un- Reasonable. or any one of several req sons may account for the failure to secure 1t, but none of them can justify the act of the man who destroyed 1t. The excuse he gave was that people were continually crossing his fields and injuring his crops, merely to sat- asfy their curiosity in many instances, af that was his reason he might easily have fenced in the stone and a road 10 1t, and by charging a small admis- sion fee he would doubtless have real axed much more than the value of the crops destroyed by curiosity seekers .. <xIowever, the rock is gone and that leads The Eagle to thus reflect:
 The incident ought to have this con sequence ~sand value, however: It should arouse our government to the necessity of preserving sundry of our historic monuments and natural won ders that are liable otherwise to fals into the hands of gainful or ignorant men who will bar the view and use of them to students, or destroy them Altogether. The tasperized forest of Arizona. the Indian mounds of the Middle West, the ancient workings on flake Superior. the revolutionary earth- Hworks the models of colonial architec- Nure in our cities should be preserved meainst commercialism as we have pre- Served the wonderland of the Yellow . Etone, the Yosemite the Palisades. and Mhould preserve the canyon of the Colo Tado And 1T government methods are fBo slow as to make the preservation Imperative after the objects have been Nestroved, then our artistic and scien- 1ifc societies might indicate their in- Nerest kn the matter.
 An exchange has an article on Van