The Adair County news., 1922-11-21
COBB MONSTER
WAS 'LOWBROW
Minute Brain-Bsx in FiNe-Foot
Skull Found in Asia, Says
Museum Expert.
DUG UP IN NURSERY OF MAN
PaleontoIoeist of American Museum Of
Natural History Gives Basis for
Belief That Great Desert
Graded Human Race.

New YOrk.-The monster with the
skull five feet long, whose remains
were found on the Cobb desert, was not
distinguished by mental power and
probably had a colossal eating equip
ment but a minute brain-bOx, accord
ing to DR.. w. D. Matthews, paleOntOlO-
gist of the American Museum of Nat
ural History.
This giant, known as the Baluchi-
therium from the fact that its only
previous remains were discovered in
Baluchistan, India, has been represent
ed previously by a few leg bones and
other fragments of skeleton, but the
first skull on record is that found by
the museum party. From the leg
bones it was identified as a big NAM
NAL Of the rhinOcerOs tribe, about the
height of a big elephant. Unlike the
shOrt-legged rhinOcerOs of TO-DAY, the
bulky Baluchitherium stood on long
legs like those of an elephant. In
order to be able to browse and root
from that height it needed a head and
neck of tremendous size and length,
such as the elephant would have to
have if it were not luckily provided
with a trunk
An Orphan Among Fossils.
The dinOsaur remains found by the
party are probably more important
than that of the Baluchitherium, ac-
cOrding TO Doctor Matthews, although
no detailed report on them has yet
been cabled to this country. The
Baluchitherium has no near relatives
among the fossils found on the Amer
believed that many new dinosaurs have
been discovered in the raviAes and foot
hills Of the Cobb.
This region of central Asia is be-
lieved by the museum party to be the
.lursery of most of the animals and
the original home of the human race.
Some evidence that it was the great
breeding place of mammals has been
found, but no bones, skulls, relics or
tools have so far come to light to indi-
cate that this was the part of the
world where the human race first de-
velOped. The Cobb desert Is a region
Of continental proportions and it may
require hundreds of years Of work by
hundreds of expeditions to master the
secrets about the early life of man be-
lieved to be entOmbed under Its hills
and plateaus and which may be eX-
posed along its water courses.
The belief that man first rose in this
region has long been held on many
grounds, but the theory has been great
ly elaborated by DR.. Henry Fairfield
Osborn, president of the museum, Doe
tor Matthews and other American
scientists.
The argument which they have
worked out in great detail is that the
COW, sheep, dog, cat and horse appear
to have been dOmestiCated in the Cobb.
The older basis for the theory is the
tradition of many races that they come
from this region. The East Indian ira
ditiOn. with some evidence TO support
it, is that India vas populated by men
from the north. The Chinese tradition
is that the Chinese came from the
west. The early settlers in the Medi-
rerranean and MesOpOtamia are be
lieved to have originated in north cen
raj Asia This region, now called the
Cobb desert. is not desert in the com
mon sense of the word, but a partially
and wyoming. 1t was probably very
different ten thousand, or a hundred
thousand, or Il few million years ago
Cradle of the Race.
"The highest types of the human race
snhabited the regions adjoining centra
Asia or are known to have come from
that direction within comparatively re
cent times" said Doctor Matthews
THE lowest types and most primitive
types Of man surviving are in the part:
most remote from the center.
The HeSperOpithecuS, or newly re
ported ape-man or higher anthropoit
of Nebraska, left his home in nentra
Asia million years or so ago and nj
grated DN way Ol IbcIlIS SlIdltSf NllSi
probably solid land bridge, from ASH
to this continent. The pithecanthrO
pus of Java, supposedly half way be
tween an anthrOpOid and human type
also left Asia within a million year:
and migrated to Java, probably theI
part of Asia, but later cut off when tht
Indian ocean moved into its present
place. The eanthrOpus of southern
England, the Heidelberg man of tn,
glacial deposits of Germany, the mean
derthal man and other primitive meI
probably were driven out of Asia BY
the uprising of stronger types.
Finally man, in his most primitive
shape-the HOttentot, the Bushman
the Andaman-was driven out of tht
human nursery.
The better strain of the devolpine
human stock is believed to have re,
mained in the Asiatic home until a few
thousand years before the dawn of his
tory, when human beings of excellent
brain power and physique were poured
from the north into Mesopotamia and
about the Mediterranean. migration fol-