Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-04-05
What to Put IN Cornerstones

F~NE of the effects of Mr.. H. G.. Wells
] Outline of History" which is prob
ably the most widely-read work of non
fiction in the world today, may be to revolu-
tionize certain customs in building, especial
ly the laying Of cornarstones ard the selec-
ton of the contents thereof.
The manager of a huge building being
erected in England, we are told by the Man
chester Guardian, was so impressu by Mr.
Wells book, particularly by his difficulty in
dealing with the worlds history three thou
sand yea ago because of lack of material
that he decided to imbed in his buildings
foundations evidence for the g'iGance of his
torians three thousand Wears hence. The
foundation, a great mass of ferro-concrete,
will last at least that long, while he is by no
means SUR that other records of our civilza-
tion will. Accordingly he wrote Mr.. Wells
for suggestions as to what would be the most
useful things to place in the cornerstone.
Mr.. Wells reply is typical of the splendid
public sense he showed in writing his outline
of mans de; elopment through the ages. cit
is difficult to make SUGGESTIONS he said.
Probably commonplace things with their
current prices will be Of as much value as
anything. Safety razor, cotton reel, bottle
Of pickles and that sort of thing. A mail-order
catalogue, pre-war and postwar. Samples of
patent medicines and what they profess to
writer, sewing machine and so forth.
Dressing bag with fittings. Current book on
How to Behave A cinema reel of current
events. Whitaker's Almanac and Bradshaw's
Continental time tables (pre-war and post
war;, Baedeker's England. Town maps and
plans"
The idea S an exciting one advanced here,
and Mr.. Wells suggestions are provocative
of extreme interest. Evidently he is calcu
lating that our present institutions and Gus
toms, which we consider so firmly grounded,
may perish in years to come, even as 1.-The
world has witnessed the passing of the
mighty empires Of the Greeks, the Assyrians,
the Babylonians and those other peoples Of
whom we have such slight record. He is
taking no chances that the printed record of
our own time will survive. He infers, by
his choice of cornerstone equipment, that the
next forty or fifty centuries may see such
revolutionary changes that tie world OF
1921 me. be as dim and strange to the
world of the year 5000 as Neolithc Man APP
pears to us today.
In fact, ore judges from the tone of Mr..
Wells writing in his current articles in the
Saturday Evening Po.., he woulc not be sur
prised to see man as he exists today utterly
wiped out, the record Of his life all but de-
stroyed, and a new race and new age de-
veloped on the earth long before the year
5000. -
From the .rief glimpse he has given US
into his mind in the articles he proposes for
the cornerstone we may imagine picture OF
the archeologist of the far future recon
structing man today. Will those patent med
icines appear strange to him WHO has reach
ed the enlightened day when man has con-
uuered disease? Will the Typewriter and
the sewing machine seem instruments as
clumsy as the Cave Dweller's arrowheads?
Viii. the maps of town and country be
wholly different world from his, ours trans
formed, perhaps, by another flood, another
glacial descent, another volcani. eruption ut
terly shifting the earth's surface characters
tics? Or will all of these things be evidences
to him Of higher civilization obliterated in
some mighty cataclysm that let the earth
back to it's beginning-the movie reel, the
books, the ,.rticles described il the mail-or-
der catalogues all to him wondrous and mar
velous Inventions?
Sheer srecllation-this. Yet Mr.. Wells
suggestion is eminently practicable. Why
not, If cornerstones are to be laid, devote
them to the preservation Of records that will
be of real value to distant generations?