Worcester Democrat And The Ledger Enterprise

Ancient Relics to
Belong to Museum
Fine Archeological Collection for Houston, Texas.

One of the largest and most interesting archeological collections in the Southwest is that of Prof. W. F. Cummins, oil geologist for the Southern Pacific railroad. Professor Cummins has announced his intention of presenting this wonderful collection of ancient relics to the Houston museum.

It consists of several hundred stone and clay images which he found in the Maya ruins in Yucatan, Mexico, and many strange objects which he unearthed in exploring prehistoric mounds in Missouri.

One specimen is a sacred image carved in stone, found nearly forty years ago in a Missouri mound, pronounced by expert geologists of the government not only genuine, but the finest specimen ever found from the mounds and cumuli of the prehistoric civilized race of the United States, probably thousands of years old. Professor Cummins refused an offer of $5,000 for it, or for a cast of it, from a government scientific institution. But he kept it as the only one of its kind for presentation to the Houston museum.

The workmanship of this stone image is perfect, requiring high artistic skill in conception and execution, indicating that an advanced degree of civilization had been reached, as well as a knowledge of species of animals that have not existed for thousands of years on this continent. The image has the beak of an eagle, the horn of a rhinoceros, the feet of an elephant, the shell of a tortoise, the flippers of a seal and the tail of a Gila monster, also the wings of a grasshopper or locust. It is stained with a brown pigment, of some unknown substance, and when discovered was incased in red clay. It is carved from a fine-grained hard white limestone, is 38 inches long and weighs 65 pounds. When found a small creek had cut away part of the mound, leaving some of the image exposed. It has been in Professor Cummins' possession since 1885.

As the ancients of central Asia had the tradition of the Noachian deluge, destroying the most of the world, so also the ancient American races had a similar tradition. Having suffered from great destruction of vegetation in what are now some of the western states, their tradition was that the world was destroyed by swarms of grasshoppers. This image commemorates the destruction of the world by grasshoppers, according to Professor Cummins.