New Britain herald., 1924-04-15
LURS OF LURISTAN
 PROVING ALLURING
Fully as Fascinating as the Land
 of King Tut

Washington, April 15.--"News dis- patches telling that Teheran. troops have subdued the Lurs of Luristan open a vista of history which is al- most as long and fully as alluring as the revelations of Tutankhamen's ton1b," says bulletin from the Washington, n. e headquarters of the National Geographic Society.
 Persia itself is the only land of Old Testament times which retains it's identity, name and nationality to this day, and the Lurs are believed to be the sborigines of this ancient country.
 Persia Still Primitive.
 "The laws of the Modes and Per sians have become a synonym of immutability; Persia itself, almsot railroadless, primitive and isolated, is essentially unchanged. And the re- mote Luristan province, on its west ern border, corrugated by mountain ranges, is one of the most backward and unaltered regions of all Persia.
 "Luristan nominallH accepted Mo- hammedanisnl, but ~the Lurs pay eCdJ1I dlttHllOn lO tflS INoIdH UT lO the Prophet Their religion em- braced a philosophical belief in re- incarnation and the practice Of an- cient heather rites.
 The Elam of the Book of Esther included Luristan, and the ruins of Susa, within the borders of the pres- ent province yielded to eXcayators of recent years specimens of pottery bearing geometrical designs. remind CTS that some of our mathematics, especially our algebra came from Persia.
 Where Wine Came From.
 Some of our finest fruits and flow CTS, much of our jewelry, and the wine which no longer is ours, arc Persian gifts to our civilization. A Persian legend attributes the discog- cry of wine to queens toothache.
 "A shah had placed grapes in a iar 10 preserve them and they fer mented, SO the story runs. There upon his majesty marked the jars poison After sleepless nights with a throbbing molar the queen deter mined to end her misery and syal- lowed a liberal portion Of the poi son.
 .'She fell into deep sleep. and when she awakened the pain had gone. Therefore, natives tell you, the Persian word for wine 10 this day means sweet poison.'
 Alcxandcr's Last Campaign.
 "A superstitious general might hes itate 10 invade I.uristan. There Alexander the Great made his last campaign. offering mp the enemy as human sacrifices 10 the spirit Of his friend. Hephaestion. There, to An tiochus Iy attempted 10 loot the tenn ples. was driven to the shameful re- treat mentioned in Maccabees, and shortly after that experience he lost his reason.
 Aside from it's gifts of peaches, oranges, spinach and polo to western peoples. Persia has for America two modern points of contact. An Amer ican body of experts is trying to put the country on soundor economic basis, and oil bids fair to oNorshadow all other products of the ancient kingdom.
 Herodptus Strikes oil. AZ
 Neither op these contact is new, however, for as early as the reign of Shah Abbas, in the sixteenth cen- tury, Persia engaged British military men to train her army. And Hero dotus made the first report on her oil. when he wrote:
 "'Near Ardericcs is a we'll which produces three different substances. for asphalt, salt and oil are drawn np from it in the following manner: IL is raised by a balance beam to which instead of bucket half wine skin is attached. Having dipped down with this, man raises it and