The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 27, 1898, Page 17

&% S FRANCISCO, SUNDAY, MARCH 27, 1898 m in The of the ac- desert wilds o dino Cou. ty able to talk of little the discovery came as a surp; Fevelation; the more so in vie w of the SCIENTIS.TS AND MINERS ON THE WAY JO THE NEW juoise mine: st of M chaeol cal treasure ever discov- over the country are discussing it, and and wond what will come Call's expedition returned from San Bernardino County. nvel this remarkable local- neans > in when cut, so that the reasons for cutting them in such places will most likely be dis- covered. The Call's expedition spent That so many athered in so natural that ort time there. ould be udy of the locality. already a move- there as brought proper au From s obtained can be no doubt that much valuable data concerning some of the very early in- habitants of our country will come to kand. And it is also safe to say that Also, there is the fact that the mark- ings are in a perfect state of preser- vation, the most perfect that have ever been found on the American continent. With such a fund of valuable material to work on, the studeént can ask for nothing more. Although the scientists of this city have studied the drawings of the hieroglyphics published in The Call not one of them has ventured to p into any particular niche. It is generally agreed that they are of too high a character to be even faintly re- lated to any of the known Indian tribes of the coast. At the same time, they are not the writings of any of the an- cient people farther to the south. What are they then? Those who have made careful com- parison of the hieroglyphics all agree ny told of the mines. only have 1 his wise men cannot count the mcons. to many scores of generations. dian who first told the stor: has been dead many centuries. as drive qut the strange pale Indians who *T was a wondrous tale Indian John- prehistoric turquoise Indian Johnny is a Piute, the son of the chief, and his*pepole ed in the desert so long that Johnny heard the tale from his father whom it was handed down after The In- to his sons As this man told the story he spoke a victor, for he it was who helped to on “their” wonderful resemblance to the Maya. They are similar but not the same. From this it is only natural to cor- clude that they were carved by a peo- ple in some sort of relationship to the Mayas. Possibly only a business re- lationship. The turquoise mines furnish one so- Jution that has hardly been questioned. The ancient people worked the mines and old or traded the stones to the or Aztecs, and in their deal- picked up a little of the learning of the more civilized tribes. Whatever may be the scientifiz or commercijal value of the new discovery, there can be no doubt that the lo- cality is at the present time one of the most interesting spots.in all California. The spot is one of the wildest on the AND corirl xCATED' THE INDIAN’S STORY OF THE MINES. put a wondrous value on the bright blue stones they dug from the hills. These pale Indians, so the story runs, came into the desert from the south. They took up their abodes in caves and had many strange dances and cer- emonies. They also had a habit of carving strange signs cn the cliffs that they claimed had a supernatural in- fluence. The Piute braves saw all this and liked it not. “Those people are witche: some gaid, “and we should drive them out.” But none dared make the attack, for the pale Indians were powerful men and had great hammers of stone with which they could strike death-dealing blows. And so the pale Indians were allowed to live in peace for many moons. They multiplied in numbers and became prosperous. The Piutes liked them ss as the years wore on, and at last decided to drive them out. Just how this was done history does earth’s surface, and the traveler might. wander over it for days without meet- ing a human being. In the most unexpected part of the desolate waste there appeared these mysterious markings on the rocks. It means nothing to us, but we naturally ask, “Where is the man who made" them?” Naturally the mind turns back a thousand years or so. Perhaps to some bright spring morning. The country looked then almost the same as it does now. The sun shone as bright and cltear and the dry wind of the desert howled as madly over the barren rocks. Surely nobody lived there. But look closer. ‘There, near to the big bowlder, is a young man with swarthy skin and long black hair. In his hand he has a rude hammer made not tell in detail. But there was & great war and the Piutes lost many of their best men; so many that at one time they despaired of the task. In the end, however, they won. The pale Indians nearly all killed, and those who were not ran away, never to come back. Behind them they left all of their tools and utensils, to be cov- ered up by the sand of the desert. And there some of them are lying yet, for no Piute ever went mnear the place. They said it was “‘haunted ground.” were of stone, and with it he is striking patiently at the black rock. Now he stops and rubs his head as if in doubt. Then he goes on again, the sound of his blows mingling with the desert wind and the quivering sunshine. It is slow work, and his diligence makes little impression on the stone in front of him. Perhaps he worked for days, perhaps weeks, but eventually he finished marking hfs message on the black surface of the rock. And then other people with dark skins came to look at it and to look with wonder at him who made it. The artist was a great man of his tribe, for he could do what the others could not. All signs of the marker have disap- peared except the crude signs left on the rough rocks. 2] . o HE commercial value of the vast fields of tyrquoise found cannot i ¢ cet -be determined. Experts will have to look over the field and de- & & ide just how it is best to mine the stones and also how they should 8 2 Dbe handled before being cut. Certain it is some m: nt stones have & 2 been feound there. They were good in both color d texture and have & % sounced by experts to be of the highest quality. 5 I & £ R R R R R iRuNNuNu SCIENTIFIC VALUE OF THE tecs wee thus a “rebus” writiog and nothi WRITINGS. BY GUSTAV E! - In expressing his opinfon as regards the interest connected w the di V- ery of the glyphs surrounding the tur- quoise mines Professor Le Conte ex- presses a doubt as regards the nature of the glyphs being the same as those found in Egypt. Professor Le Conte is fully justified in doing so, as it is now fully estab- lished that none of the aborigines of America possessed an alphabet or any writing which could be compared to the phonetic alphabets of the Old World. Neither the writings of the Aztecs nor the Mayas were phonetic in the manner that our own alphabet is. But the Az- tecs really gave a phonetic value to some signs, while others connected with them, In the same sentence, merely ex- pressed a certalh value or qualification of the others. The writing of the Az- If we now turn to the other great civ- ilized nation of Mexico. the Mayas, we find their writing of even a more start- ling character. Among the many hun- dreds of records of their writing yet rved, not one be shown to sess a single phonetic element. RESEM- | BLING| The Landa czlphabet, so-called, be- causerecorded by Bishop Landa of Yu- catan In Mexico, gives us, it is true, a number of signs with their phonetic value, and even records a sentence in the Maya language written in such characters. - But none of the Maya rec- ords that have come down to us con- tains with certainty any of these signs, and it is now almost definitely settled that the Landa alphabet was probably a late effort of the Mayas or of some NMaya scribe to invent a phonetic al- phabet, and to introduce. the Spanish methad. ‘What few fragments of writings of the aborigines that have been found in Peru and Chile have not yet been deciphered, indeed they are too frag- Continued on Page 26.