Evening star., 1933-09-24


Death" which once treacherously
sucked powerful and weird monsters
into quicksand tombs beneath the
earth's surface, is revealing another
chapter in fascinating tale laid in the long
ago
Baked by a Scorching sun into SANDSTONE
after some catacysmic upheaval thousands OF
wears ago land that scientists believe Is an
other Cobb Desert is expected to answer
question much disputed, How old is man III
North American
within the last few months, excavators have
unearthed evidence at number OF wldeiy-
separated places that mans history in North
America dates back at least 5000 900, and per-
haps $4,000 600, years.
The most recent and outstanding of these
discoveries. and the one that is expected 70
unravel more definitely the tangled threads
OF the prehistoric past Is that OF the. ne"
"Gobi Desert" in Arizona.
In country much similar to the great
Manchurian wastes where SO much OF the story
of a lost world is written in the rocks, Homer
Tate an Arizona archeologist, has found an
ancient uuicksand lake stretching more than
10 miles in length. This vast quagmire lured
to death the mastodons imperial elephants and
other gargantuans of the animal kingdom In
the early part of the Great Ice Age, from
500 900 to 1000 900 years ago.
4
W. perial elephants have been dug out of the
rock since the discovery. But the most sem
sational development, Mr.. Tate points out, is
that positive evidences of human beings were
found in the same strata of the sandstone as
the mammoths.
To the scientists this means that man lived
alongside these towering hulks Of flesh and
was a cousin to the famed Mr.. and Mrs
Neanderthal of the Old World. and even the
famous "Pithecanthropus ErectuSy"
The upper jaw of an imperial elephant.
massive block weighing about $50 pounds,
led to the finding of the Lake OF Death. Some
boys who had been hunting rattlesnakes l2O
miles southeast of Tucson reported to Mr.. Tate
that large COW head was sticking out OF tne
wall of a canyon
INVESTIGATING he found that foodWaters
surging from the high mountain slopes in the
Spring had cut an arroyo through the OLD
lake bed uncovering part of the jaw. 1t had
been covered at one time with more than lou
feet of rock and earth-layer piled upon layer
as geological history moved along in its
turbulent cavalcade.
Following this discovery, others came rapidly
So many hundreds of gigantic beasts had
walked into the murder trap that few minutes
OF digging in almost any spot would unearth
some fossil.
Mr.. Tate has launched plans to excavate
good part of this North American COBB
Desert" DR.. Byron Cummings, dean OF
archaeology at the University of Arizona and
distinguished for his achievements with the
National Geographic Society at the pyramids
in Mexico, is going to advise in the work,
which will cover several years.
Although the old Lake of Death is now
sandstone. it remains unknown world
frought with dangers for those Balboas who
dare to trek over its scorching, desolate sands.
It is one of the widest mountain regions in
the United States. 1t is world gone mad"
geologically.
Like the Cobb of Asia, buttes and canyons
have been flung together as in some grotesque
figs puzzle. Monoths rise against the
skyline, carved by the hot cutting winds into
semblances of the obelisks that guard the
tombs of the Egyptian pharaohs.