Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 October 1880 — Pre-Historic Discoveries. [ARTICLE]

Pre-Historic Discoveries.

Curious facts relating to a pro-historic age crowd upon us from all quarters, as the recent announcement by Prof Karl Vogt, made at the Scientific Congress at Innsbruck, that the cultivated §lants in the Bwiss lake villages are now iscovered to be of African, and to a great extent Egyptian origin, tending to show that our civilization came not from Asia, but from Africa! What a vast region for thought and speculation is opened for a simple announcement like tlijs. Still more remarkable are the discoveries in the volcanic islands of Sontorin and Thorasia, in the Archi*' polago. Here the clearing away of a eed of tula, to make cement for the use of the Suez Canal works, has revealed a whole series of villages and dwellingplaces, full of implements and remains of a people during the Btone Age, who were destroyed by some great convulsion of nature. 1 If there is one spot on the. world where every inch or ground . has been historically surveyed, that spot is certainly Rome; but the explorations of Mr. J. H. Parker (the English Gothic author), threw a new light on its origin and early history. He says, “What I saw at first dimly and obscurely I now see clearly, that the city of Rome was built upon the great earthwork of these primitive fortifications, which have governed the plain of the city, and have had great influence on the sites and plans of the principal public buildings. These gigantic earthworks consisted, like other primitive fortifications of scarped cliffs, of terraces,nmd trenches. These primitive fortifications are very much ooliterated by having been built over for many centuries, but recent demolitions have brought to light the original work.” ‘

These interesting discoveries illustrate the use that people are now making of their eyes, enlightened by comparative research in varmus countries, and tend to preserve intact the tangible relic of a pre-historic civilization.