Newspaper Page Text
Uncover Ancient
Colombian City
Explorers for Field Museum Find
Place That Was Once a
World Center.
ITS POPULATION WAS IMMENSE
inhabitants Were Expert Builders of
Houses and Roads and Were Skill
ful in Making Gold
Ornaments.
Chicago. —Ruins of an ancient city
of great size, hitherto unknown, have
fcecu uncovered In Colombia hy the
South American archeological expedi
tion of the Field Museum of Natural
History, working under the leadership
of Dr. J. A. Mason. The ruins of the
dty, or collection of villages, are In
portion of Colombia now uninhabit
ed and almost unknown to science.
It is evident, the museum announced
today, that this was once one of the
great centers of population of the
world, hut today even its name is un
known.
Tiu: iinds to date indicate that in an
dent times the country was densely in
habited hy settled agricultural tribes
who were seinicivilized. They were ex
pect builders and possessed great skill
In the working of gold and precious
Hones.
Ancient Population Tremendous.
Mr. Mason sent the following mes
sage regarding the discoveries he lias
made thus fur:
‘There must hnve been a tremendous
population here at one time, as the
country is covered with house sites.
The region is very mountainous, and
the houses, which were of wood, were
huilt on terraces made with retaining
waifs. In tho center of each terrace
there are entering steps of beautifully
eat stone, and, If the main path is far
feclow, other steps are built to con
nect Hie teirnee with it.
"The principal place where I have
been working lias a long staircase of
-tfe' steps, all made of nicely cut quad
rangular stone slabs. Instead of the
Greek Queen and Her Granddaughter
Miss Ella llardcastle, an American girl, entered the royal palace at
Athens and induced the royal family to pose before her lens. Perhaps the
iwst unusual and best of the pictures is this of Queen Sophie, holding little
Aspasin, her grandchild, child of the lute King Alexander by his morganatic
salon with Mile. Manos.
WILL USE WARSHIPS AS TARGETS
flo Buyers Found for the Doomed
British Vessels.
Kavy Is Using the Famous Dread
naughts and Cruisers in Gunnery
and Airplane Bombing
Tests.
Loudon. —Having found no buyers
fcr the great group of battleships
*tncli the Washington conference de
creed should be scrapped, Great Brit
ain is using the monsters as targets
for gunners of the royal navy and
bombers of the royal air force. Like
ttic United States and France, this
country has a dozen or more specially
foso cruisers and one-time dread
noughts which must be relegated to
the ignominious Junk pile.
Thunderer, Monarch, Conqueror,
Colossus, Lion, Ajax, Centurion, King
fib urge V, Princess Royal, Erin and
Orion, monsters of 20,000 or more tons,
Indian road of which I have heard,
there are thousands of them all
through the mountains. There are ap
parently wide roads connecting the
main sites.
Roads Skillfully Built.
“Ail are pnved with flat waterworn
rocks of more or less uniform size, the
small paths being a single line of such
stones, while the more important roads
are four feet or more wide and edged
with upright stones. When the way
ascends or descends the stones are set
as steps.
“On the side of almost every house
there can still he found the metate, or
grinding slab, on which the family
Miracle Healer
of Porto Rico
Julita Vasquez Attracts Immense
Throngs to San Lorenzo
Every Week.
CRIPPLES CROWD THE ROADS
Healing Waters Come From a Spring
but They Don’t Work Until the
Woman Has Blessed
Them.
San Juan, Porto Rico. —Extra po
licemen hnve been detailed for duty at
Ban Lorenzo to help lmndle the
crowds drawn there from Wednesday
night to late Friday each week by the
stories of apparent cures by Julia Vas
quez, the “healer of San Lorenzo.”
Hundreds, if uot thousands, of auto
mobiles carrying the sick, laine and
curious have been visiting San Lo
renzo, and so great have been the
traffic jams that there have been copi-
once the pride of the seven seas, are
all doolued. Costing more than $15,-
000,000 originally, junk dealers have
offered the government only $20,000
apiece for them.
The navy now Is engaged in a series
of target tests on the famous battle
ships Agamemnon and Superb, which,
like their sister ships, are to find their
graves In the ocean at the hands of
the gunners and jack tnrs that once
manned them. The admiralty is trying
by these tests to determine how a di
rect hit can he prevented from passing
from the turret down the ammunition
tube.
In the battle of Jutland, Invincible,
Indefatigable and Queen Mary blew up
because of a flash passing from the
ammunition tube to the magazine be
low' So Superb is now In the English
channel and Is being shelled at pun
ishing ranges to see whether or not
the flash of explosion passes down to
the powder and shell magazines under
given conditions.
THE DANIELSVILLE MONITOR, DANIELSVILLE, GEORGIA.
ground its corn. In nil the villages we
have found quantities of broken pot
tery, mostly fragments of large un
decorated jars. Some were decorated
with relief ornaments and there Is one
sort of very flue black pottery which
is incised or carved.”
The ancient inhabitants of this coun
try decorated themselves with gold or
naments and buried these with their
dead, the early Spaniards are known
to hnve taken fabulous quantities of
gold from the ancient graves and the
further work of the expedition should
bring to light many objects of value
and interest, it was said.
Specimens already received at the
museum include gold bells, small beau
tifully made gold figures and orna
ments of shell, earnellan and agate.
The most valuable acquisition is a
complete set of ornaments worn by a
native priest in the performance of his
religious duties. The expedition is
supported by the endowment of re
search given to the museum by Capt.
Marshall Field.
plaints to the police that the San Lo
renzo road was impassable. On a re
cent Thursday there was a line of mo
tors two miles long on each side of the
roadway waiting "or people who are
rapidly wearing into a broad trail the
cow path that leads up the steep hills
to the spring from which the sup
posedly healing waters come.
Thousands go by motor to the “heal
er,” and more thousands on foot. From
Caguas and other nearby towns there
has sprung up a regular motor service
to and front the place of “miracles.”
People go by truckloads. They go in
carriages, carts and some are carried.
Stories of “miracles” are spread with
wonderful rapidity through the crowd
each day, and there are reports of
people coming from Santo Domingo or
the Virgin islands to get the waters
blessed hy the “healer.” Some make
a fiesta of it; others are almost rev
erential.
The healing spring is about a mile
from the town where the “healer”
lives. Near the spring a palm-cov
ered pavilion sheltering 400 to .100 peo
ple has been erected. There Thurs
days and Fridays the healer sits in a
chair on a raised platform and re
ceives the sick.
She Magnetizes Water.
Waters from the spring lack heal
ing qualities until site has blessed or
magnetized them. After being blessed
the water is carried away in bottles,
buckets, oil cans, anything. And each
person the “healer” sees is told to
bathe, rub the afflicted portion of the
body witli the water, or drink so much
of it at certain times.
Frequently the “healer” is aroused
from her trances with great difficulty.
Her father and a brother assist her.
Her “power” is supposed to have been
passed on to her, while the spring
waters for many years have been re
puted to have healing qualities. It
was about two months ago that the
“healer” first attracted attention.
Since then her fame has spread
throughout the island.
Crow Guides Lost Man.
Stroudsburg, Pa. —The crowing of a
rooster saved the lUe of William War
ner, who became lost in a cranberry
swamp near Tannersville. Warner
wandered for a long time, and finally
was caught in the soft, boggy land
up to his waist. After he succeeded
in dragging himself out and got onto
firmer land, he was so tired and weary
that he realized that he might again
be mired. Hardly daring to move he
heard the rooster crow, and followed
the sound until he reached a farm
house.
Agamemnon, too, may soon need a
succeisor. She is a moving target,
more difficult to hit than Superb, which
Is stationary. She Is propelled by oil.
The supply of oil Is turned on, her
engines are started, and the engineers
flee from her before she gathers too
much headway. Her speed as well as
her steering apparatus are controlled
by wireless in another ship.
The most exciting part of these
tests is that played by the sloop Snap
dragon. She Is responsible for taking
accurate motion pictures of what hap
pens to the target as the result of the
shots. At times she runs the risk of
being hit by the monster armor-piercing
projectiles as well as being rammed
by the 20,000-ton Agamemnon.
One Mail Coat for Force.
Berlin. —Coats of mail have been
adopted for German detectives en
gaged in dangerous pursuits of crim
inals, hut because of a shortage of
funds the Berlin department can own
but one of the useful vests of armor.
Asa result this will be passed around
in turn to men engaged in following
desperate criminals.
In tbiAnflti&eife
Slate Pickers at Work.
(Prepared by the National Geographic So
ciety, Washington, D. C.)
Coal is one of the vital factors in
modern civilization that is taken for
granted. It is only when the priceless
black stream that flows to our cities
and factories threatens to dry up that
the average person gives thonght to
the importance, magnitude and com
plexity of the coal industry.
The first thing that impresses one
who studies the coal situation in Amer
ica is the well-nigh inconceivable pro
portions of the nation’s demands for
fuel. The highest point in coal produc
tion was reached in 1918, the last year
of the World war, when slightly more
than 600,000,000 tons were mined. But
in the year immediately preceding and
in 1920 tlie production was little short
of that amount. So huge is this figure
that it were almost as futile to use
tons as units as to measure the dis
tance around the earth in inches.
About the only way in which one can
visualize this demand is to build a
mental bin capable of holding enough
to meet the national need. If this bin
were made with each of its four sides
measuring a thousand feet, it would
have to be more than 27,000 feet high—
almost twice as high as Pikes Peak.
Or, if the fuel were put into a coal
pile of normal slope, with a base of
20 feet, that pile would have to be
nearly 80,000 miles long—more than
three times around the earth.
A visit to a modern colliery in the
anthracite region is an impressive ex
perience. Depending on its size and
the labor available, it will bring from
one to two full trainloads of coal up
out of the bowels of the earth every
day, put the coal through the breaker,
where the sheep of fuel are separated
from the goats of slale and culm, and
load it into the cars ready for market.
-Colliery in Anthracite Region.
We shall be safe even if we go down
a thousand feet into the earth and
roam about in an underground planta
tion whose area may be judged by the
fact that there are 83 miles of railroad
track in it.
There are some things on top of the
ground that will be even more inter
esting to us when we go below —par-
ticularly the hoisting engine and the
ventilating fan, for without the one we
would not be able to ride back to day
light, and without the other we would
stand a chance of being “gassed” in
times of peace.
The giant fans fly around with a
rim speed of a mile a minute, two of
them, with a third in reserve for emer
gencies. If it were not for those fans
the air in the mine would become so
laden with gas and dust that if It did
not explode and transform the whole
mine into a charnel house, it would
develop choke-damp and suffocate us.
Every mine has two shafts —the
hoisting shaft and the air shaft. In
order to keep the air in the mine free
enough from gas to permit miners to
work in safety, enormous quantities
of fresh air must be sent down the
one shaft and corresponding quantities,
gas-laden, drawn out of the other.
It may very well be imagined that a
mine with enough tunneling to call
for Sf> miles of railroad track needs
a great deal of air, and that this air,
to reach every part, must cross its own
patli many times, just as a man, cover
ing all four sides of every block in a
city, would have to cross his own
tracks. In the mines this is accom
plished like a railroad crossing by
bridge instead of at grade. When a
I crossing point Is reached, there is a
tunnel opened up through the solid
•nek above the roof of the mine, and
through this the air rushes at right
angles to its former direction.
To get the air properly distributed,
it Is necessary to make splits, so that
the current can be divided and sent in
to different sections of the mine. Thesa
air splits are doors which permit only
half of the air coming their way to
pass. The remainder must lind some
other way through.
We step on the “cage” or lift, the
mine superintendent presses a button,
and the hoisting engineer is notified
that we are ready to go down. Sud
denly the cage seems to drop; then it
seems to stop, and the walls of the
shaft appear fairly to fly upward past
us. Up, up, up they fly, disclosing
this stratum of rock and then that.
Planned Like a City.
Arriving at the bottom, we soon find
that a coal mine is planned like a city.
There is one main street, or entry, and
it has been laid out with the nicety of
a grand boulevard. Parallel with this
are the other entries, and across these
entries run other streets, at right an
gles usually, which are called headings.
Lining all these headings as houses line
the streets are the chambers, or rooms,
in which the miners work.
When we stop at the bottom we feel
ourselves in a small-sized hurricane.
It is the air rushing down the shaft
and starting through the mine on its
mission of purification. Setting out
down the main entry, along a railroad
track, we soon hear a clanging bell
and a whistle, and presently theie
looms out of the darkness a yellow
light. As It approaches, we see the
outlines of what appears to be a long,
round boiler creeping along the rails;
but in reality it is a compressed-air
engine—for compressed air, rather
than electricity, is the haulage power
in this mine.
We walk and walk until we begin
to feel as though we might he coming
out over in China or France, and then
we come to the rooms or chambers
for all the coal in the neighborhood or
the hoisting shaft has gone up In heat
and smoke long before now and tins
mine is far-flung. h
These rooms or chambers nngm > ■
monks’ cells in some catacombs for the
living. Here the miner bores am
blasts and digs away the coal and
loads it into the mine cars, it he ■
a helper he does not need to 1 11
loading himself. The car holds about
6,000 pounds of run-of-the-mme cow,
and a miner is supposed to flu t"°
them a day.
When the car is loaded the m
puts his number on It, and l ,! e *;
with much ado, there comes up -
heading and into the passageway e
ing to the chamber a string of mu
walking tandem, or sing e ‘ ’
dragging an empty car be me •
pull out the loaded car. set tb W
one where the miner wants
back with the load of coal.
When we reach the top a* ■■
note the layout of the breaker plant,
where the coal is cleane >*■ gjzes>
into the several commeruu
The first thing that impress u
that the mine owners are • m
careful in saving coal as a m
hoarding his gold. bre aker,
Going up to the top of the
we see the coal as it come me .
mine with all its / lflt r e ““ d d at a time,
chanically dumped, a 1 . . ;,,.gin
j upon the oscillating '. ar *' a ] from
the process of separating rt .
the worthless material and •
ing of the former into gttU
ing to size.