The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1908-04-17

lea is the conclusion of pampnleL
soon to be issued by Dr. Ales Hrdlica,
of the United States National Mu-
scum, through the Bureau of Eth
nology, in Washington, and in which
the various discoveries supposed to
be of geological antiquity are de-
clared to be Of comparative modern
man.
DR.. Hrdlica was formerly of the
staff Of the American Museum of
Natural History, and since going to
washington has done little but study
the bones of ancient and modern man,
and after exhaustive examination
sums up his work with a declaration
that those scientists who hold that
prehistoric man existed on this conti-
nent have erred.
DR.. Hrdlicas declaration in the
forthcoming pamphlet places him in
direct opposition to leading American
anthropologists
Views of Other Scientists.
On November Is, 1908, in the New
York Sunday Herald, the most emil
nent scientists in America in a sym
postum presented signed statements
affirming the great antiquity of man
in America.
Professor Henry F. Osborn, of the
American Museum, inclined to the
view that there were traces of man in
the equus (horse) beds, estimated to
be 100000 years old.
Professor f. w. Putnam, of Har-
ward, asserted his belief in his own
evidence that paleolithic man wan
.dered in the Delaware Valley in pre-
glacial times Of remote antiquity.
DR.. w. j. MCGEE, then president of
the American Anthropologica Asso-
citation, argued for primitive man
here mot less than 1000 nor more
than 10000 years ago."
DR.. w. H. Holmes, chief of the Bu-
reau of Ethnology, said proofs
pointed to 5000 years, but his own
view was 1000 years.
Professor Persifor Frazer, of Phila-
delphia, believed the Lansing man to
be 56,O00Nyears CID.
sity of Minnesota; Professor S. w.
Williston, of the Field Columbian Mu-
scum, and Professor Warren Upham,
of the University of Iowa, declared
the Lansing man pre-glacial.
DR.. Hrdlica's Views.
Slut one conclusion is justified,
DR.. Hrdlica will say, (which is, that
thus far on this continent no human
bones of undisputed geological an
tiquity are known. This must not be
regarded as equivalent to a declara-
ton that there was no early man in
this country; it means only that if
early man did exist in North America,
convincing proof of the fact, from the
standpoint of physical anthropology,
still remains to be produced
ION this continent, since men be-
gan to study the subject, there have
been unearthed only fourteen skele-
tons or parts of skeletons the early
age of which has received any scien-
tific sanction. They are: The New
Orleans bones, discovered in 1874;
the Quebec skeleton, of about the
same time; the Natchez pelvic bone,
unearthed n 1916; the Lake Monroe
I(Fla.) bones, 1852 or 1853; the Soda
Creek .(Col) skeleton, 1860; the
Charleston g. CO. fragments, of a lit
tie later; the Calaveras (CaI.) skull,
1866; the Rock Bluff (Ill) skull, the
same year; the Penyon (Mex.) skele-
ton, 1884; the Trenton skulls, 1879
1887; the Western Florida skull and
bones, 1871-1888; the Trenton femur,
1899; the Lansing (Kan) skeleton,
1902, and the Nebraska 'loess man,
of last year and several years before.
Of these some attracted great atten-
ton at the time of their discovery.
and the discussion of the Calaveras
skull particularly grew to such heat
that the disastrous results to Our
Society Upon the Stanislaus' were
graphically recorded in verse by Bret
Harte.
Earlier Discoveries.
"The first, the New Orleans skeleton,
was struck in digging two gas tanks
in what was then the back part of the |
city of New Orleans. 1t lay sixteen
feet below the surface beneath the
roots of a tree. Fifty-seven thousand |
years was the extravagant claim for
its age, but apparently the bones were
not old enough to have become fos-
SLICED.
"The Quebec skeleton, it was said,
was dug out of the solid schist rock
on which the citadel stands, but no
trace Of it can now be found. The
rock from which it was said to have
been taken is of a period known to be