The Elko Independent

A Nut for Archaeologists.

Since the result of Governor Arny's explorations in Mexico was made public, there has been no discovery of more interest to the American archaeologist than the one alleged to have been recently made in Iowa, on the line of the projected Dubuque and Minnesota railroad. The workmen, while engaged in excavating for the road, in the lime at the foot of a bluff, are said to have come upon a flat stone covered with strange characters. This being removed opened the way into a passage about four feet wide and six feet high, leading directly into the heart of the bluff. At a distance of about fifty feet from the entrance another stone, similar to the first, had to be removed, when a large chamber revealed itself, cut out of solid rock, about twenty-five feet square, and twenty feet high. The floor was hard and smooth, while the walls and roof were carved in a sort of bas-relief, with figures of birds, trees, stars, serpents and chariots. The south wall was adorned with a representation of the sun, and immediately below this the figure of a man in the act of stepping out of a boat, and holding a dove in his hand.

So far the revelations were not very different from many previous ones in caves and rock chambers throughout our western country. The most curious part of the discovery was yet to come, and one that would go far to support the theory of many savants with regard to the physical degeneration of the race. A flat slab in the floor of the cavern being raised, revealed below a vault filled with skeletons of an unusual size, the largest being seven feet eight inches high by actual measurement. By the side of each skeleton was set a small vase filled with yellow earth, beneath which were found animal bones and particles of animal matter. The skeletons were placed in a semi-circle toward the south-west.

What this last and unknown race can have been we leave our antiquaries to conjecture. Perhaps they were a branch of that mysterious and cultivated people whom the Aztecs are said to have swept away and destroyed in their great hegira to the plains of Mexico. Or they may have been related to the great stock of the Natchez, which once held sway all along the Mississippi. The figured sun on the walls of the rock chamber would indicate that they worshiped that luminary, and the representation of a man with a dove stepping out of a boat, may be an allusion to that tradition of the deluge which in one form or another all of our aboriginal people have been found to hold. But to whatever family this forgotten race may have belonged, it is certain that they had attained a higher degree of civilization than was reached by those who came after them. In the fingers of the largest skeleton was held a pearl ornament, and traces of cloth were found crumbled at the feet of the remains. What is more important and curious, many copper implements were found, thus seeming to show that the Lake Superior copper mines were worked at a very early period.

If the account that we have received of this remarkable cave is strictly true, investigation may derive from it important additions to our stock of knowledge regarding the primitive races of our country, and we are glad to learn that the remains are to be removed to the Iowa Institute of Arts and Sciences, Dubuque.

—Exchange.