South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1917-10-13

WASHINGTON. oct. 12.-In
continuation Of our walk through
the halls of the great smith
sonian institution. where we
viewed the monsters of the Jurassic
age. we now take up the collections
relating to primitive man.
When you have got through with
the most ancient animal fossils. still
half-imbedded in the petrihed mud
and sand that were sea beaches and
sea bottoms a hundred million years
ago, and then have seen the mon
sters and giants OF the age of rep
tiles, you will come. H. the adjoining
halls and corridors. to the relics. re-
mains and works OF primeval man.
beginning in the glacial epoch. when
our preadamite ancestors shared
with ferocious beasts. whose precise
species are now extinct, the shelter
OF caves and caverns, and fought
them with stone axes, daggers and
spearheads.
II can hardly be without a strange
thrill that you Will look upon a white
pasteboard box which may have
been the cover Of a bonnet box but
which now serves. IN one Of the cab
inets filled with relics Of the Old
stone (paleolithic) age, as a conven-
lent receptacle for fragments OF hu-
man bones" taken from a cavern in
France that was inhabited by men
and women a thousand centuries
ago.
The antiquity OF the mummies Of
the Pharaohs. discovered in the
tombs Of Egyptian kings. is nothing
TO this ana yet, except that no his
tory has recorded the names and
deeds OF the persons 20 whom they.
in life, belonged, these unthinkably
aged bones are as authentic as the
relics Of Rameses or Queen Nofre-
tart.
There is something crushingly
convincing in such a sight. IL has
q thousand fold the evidential force
of mere words telling what science
has concluded about the antiquity
Of man. Here are the gray black
| bones themselves - only q heap. of
mixed fragments. TO be sure. but 20
the anatomist's eye plainly human
bones-bones that walked. clothed
with the flesh OF men. under the
/ fitting sunbeams OF some intergla-
cial period, in the days OF the mann
moths and the mastodons, a hundred
millenniums before the traditional
date OF the first man." Adam.
! 1 remember once. in the old
! Spanish capital, Burgos, persuading
an attendant TO lift the glass cover
OF the case containing the bones OF
/ the Cid and allow me to put my fin
/ ger upon those relics OF the great
! Spanish hero who lived more than
| goo years ago. II seemed an i'm
mense length OF time for human
] bones TO be preserved, but what are
I 600 years 10 100, 0002 And we are
more certain that these fragments
/ in the museum formed parts of the
! bodies Of men or women. or both.
living a thousand centuries ago. than
we are that the bones in Burgos real
1 ly belonged 10 the Cid.
| In the cabinets all around the
/ box of bones are some Of the actual
! implements and weapons Of Clipped
stone that the owners Of those bones
or their relatives made in that far
/ off age. Looking upon these things
one is amazed TO think how many
times 5000 years have passed since
man had to begin TO work for his
I living and 10 night FOR his life. Here
you can see proof that the decree
that lin the sweat OF his face man
shall eat his bread is of geological
antiquity. II had already been pro-
nounced when these hints We're
Clipped into knives and these stones
! shaped into hammers and pestles, or
followed out FOR grinding bowls.
It went into effect from the mo-
ment when the growing superiority
of mans brain definitely marked
f! him out as the head of the animal
+. kingdom Work is a child of the
( brain. The greater the intelligence
( the stronger the desire. the ability
and the necessity % do something.
one OF the most instructive les
sons that you can learn among these
relics Of the ages of stone is that
which is taught by the gradually in