Arizona republican., 1913-02-23
THE MYSTERY OF EASTER ISLAND

Two recent events have revived in terest in and promise the final solu- ton of mystery that has puzzled the world for two hundred years, or at least since the Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen discovered the triangle of land known as Easter Island, on Easter morning. 1722, 27 degrees and 50 mln- utes south of the equator 1000 miles from South America and 1,4O0 miles from the nearest land, Pitcairn Island The two facts that may prove the keys that will unlock the secrets of Easter Island are the sailing of an eX- petition fitted out by the British Mu- scum as an expedition of research and investigation. in charge of w. ScoresDy Routlcdge and some late conclusions bv Prof w F. Stafford of the United States department of agriculture. bot anist and ethnolOgist, who has traVeled among the isles of the Pacific and also in South America to trace points of similarity. if they exist, between the as vet unsolved sculpture and untranslat- ed language of this forty-two square miles of land and the monuments ana peoples of Peru and Bolivia.
 
 | counted $50 sculptured statues, created upon cyclopean masonry according to ! the latest bulletin of the Pan American | union Also there are stone houses, l some more than one hundred feet in 1 length. with walls six feet thick, built l like forts There are tablets in a strange language. terraces on head | lands. with wall toward the sea, some | times thirty feet high and more than l two or three hundred feet long. On the land side of the terraces are large stone pedestals for the images.
 1 Most of the effigies and inscrip- 1 lions are cut from rough solid lava. , Forty are inside the crater of one vol l canO and outside are as many more at the foot of the slope, where they were placed for removal to different plat forms. Some platforms measure only
 three or four feet in length, while Oth- CTS are eighty feet in extent. The larg- est is in an unfinished state. If erect ed upon it's pedestal it would stand | seventy feet in height. The smallest figure is only three feet high. All are 1 of the same grim, frozen faced type with the head long. eyes closed under | heavy brows. nose large, low bridged and very broad at the nOstrils, the up per lip short and the lips pOuting. In
 most instances the head tiltS backward | The lower part of the face is broad and
 heavy, but imperfectly formed. Ears are long and pendant. The shape gen.
 erally ends at the shoulders or waist
 the expression is profoundly solemn
 disdainful. rudely picturing supercili
 ous scOrn.
 One of the most remarkable features of the mystery is the fact that only
 one of these images stands in it's orig
 inal position upon a platform. All the
 others were thrown down
 The work of these ancients stopped
 suddenly But why? For two centuries
 this question has remained unanswered . Was it the eruption of volcano tha
 did it? Some of the largest Of the i'm
 ages are buried to the neck in ashe! and fragments of lava
 The recorded writings of the race O.
 stone artists is cut into wooden tablets
 Their alphabet. words and sentences significant thoughts. are expressed b!
 pictures of men. animals and various r geometrical designs.
 To read page in this supposedl, s fascinating recorded thought, provided you had the lexicon, you must rea'