The Anaconda Standard

Science, Tradition and Fact.

It sometimes happens that a little, commonplace fact upsets the most ingenious, interesting and apparently conclusive theories. The wires bring the news of the finding of the body of Miss Yergin, who, with Instructor Merriam, of Cornell university, was drowned in Cayuga lake, New York, several months ago. The search for their bodies was prosecuted with great diligence and by ordinary and extraordinary methods. Science was called into play and ingenious students in the electrical department prepared an apparatus to examine the bottom of the lake with powerful search lights. The electricians accomplishing nothing, the geologists of the university took their turn, and finally announced that Cayuga lake was one that never gave up its dead because its bottom was a series of large crater-like openings of unfathomable depth. The geologists moreover, were backed up by the traditions of the lake, dating back to the days of the Indians. The legends ran that for centuries the aborigines had used the lake for a burying ground and that never once was a body known to rise to the surface. With this in their favor the geologists proclaimed that if it were possible for one to make the rounds of this lake's crater-like bed, he would, without doubt, encounter hideous charnel houses without number - caverns where hosts of grinning skeletons have found sepulcher, submarine catacombs, without end. What a pity it is that the body of Miss Yergin should be so prosaic as to come to the top and cast discredit upon all these thrilling traditions and marvelous geological researches.