(
Princeton Univer
sity Scientists
AxSearching for
Sunken Remains
of the Ancient
Bridge Which Con
nected Europe and
America Thou
sands of Years
By W. H. Ballou, Sc. D.
SET your clock back to a period ex
tending from several hundred thou
sand years to 70,000 years ago; to
the time of the evolution of the human
race and of other mammalia. Let your
Imagination roam from that period ae far
back as you like. It should not be diffi
cult for any one to set up a mental image
of a world at that time considerably dif
ferent In its natural conformations to
those which exist to-day. We know this
tentatlTely because of the discovery ct
animal and plant remains in places which
they could only have reached on land
bridges.
Where were these land bridges and
what crossed themt Many men of science
for several hundred years have given
much attention to the subject and assem
bled vast collections and data and speci
mens in proof of the general hypothesis.
Not a single man of science has thrown
doubt on the existence of land bridges
extending entirely around the region of
the Arctic Circle in ancient times. The
exact contours of such bridges, however,
remain more or less of a mystery.
At the present moment, the third ex
pedition of Princeton University, under
Professor Gilbert Van Ingen, one of the
greatest Invertebrate paleontologists, is
Investigating in Newfoundland and collect
ing fossils to establish such a bridge and
Its location, connecting that province with
Scotland and Scandinavia. It may well
be doubted it Professor Van Ingen will
accept as such bridge the apparent ridge
of rock on which the Atlantic cables are
taid. The water over this ridge ranges
to 6.000 feet depths and lies too far south
of the Continental Shelf, the line around
continents where the ocean abyss Jumps
from 600 feet to precipitous deeps. All
that he will attempt to do will be to pre
pare a map of curvatures in lesser
depths, which conservative investigators
can accept This latter class accept as
conclusive the hypothesis of Matthew
that ocean abysses were never crossed
by land bridges, connecting, for instance,
Australia. Madagascar and Cuba with the
mainlands.
Admitting tentatively, then, former land
bridges that connected Asia and Alaska
on one side of the world, and Scandi
navia, Scotland, Europe, Iceland, Faroe
and other islands, Greenland and Labra
dor on the other side, there remains to
ahow Mlssourians and others what peo
ples, animals and plants made use of
these bridges for their migrations, using
legs in place of Pullman cars.
America was peopled before the last
jce age set In. By whom and how 7 Mat-
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Photographs of a Chinese Baby and an American Indian Baby,
Showing the Marked Similarity Between the Two.
Omaha Sunday Bee Magazine
the rx. : ; L T W
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Ago ' m,m: . cr
thew has shown that all life, animal and
vegetable, was dispersed from a Hoi-arctlc-Aslatlc
region, of which Thibet
was the centre, migrating in successive
waves until the uttermost parts of the
earth were reached. Boas has demon
strated that the Mongoloid type of men,
from their habitat in northern and cen
tral Asia, reached Europe and the new
world.
As to the use of the natural bridge be
tween northeastern Asia and Alaska,
Boas finds that the only people thaf pat
ronized it prior to the last ice age, were
the Ainus of Japan and the Pacific north,
western tribes. No culture of
these peoples, who intermin
gled at will, has ever been
found existing among other
American tribes. Boas says:
"Pottery neither reached the
Pacific Northwest nor the
extreme of South America,
and the art forms of tho
North Pacific coast and of
the Arctic coast, show no
affiliation with those of the
middle portions of the conti
nent " Our New York State
Indians are regarded as still
primitive Aryans.
What la the answer? Mon
golians could not have passed
through Siberia and Alaska
to Middle North America
without leaving traces of
their own culture and carry
ing along some of the culture
of the Ainus or other north
erners. Further, Aslastlcs
were cut off from northeast
ern migrations both by the
terrible Mongolian steppes
and the vast ranges of east
and west running snow-clad
mountains. They could have
reached America in two ways
only. They could have used
some form of craft or they
could have travel'ed across
the prehlstorio land bridge
from Europe to Labrador!
Matthew well remarks that if a canoe full
of Asiatics got blown across the Atlantic
once in a century or once in ten cen
turies, It would be ample to populate tho
world during the thousands of years men
has existed on earth. These canoes,
however, could not well contain domestic
animals, and there is ample evidence that
the prehistoric Americans either brought
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An American Indian in Aboriginal Costume, and the Same Indian In
Chinese Costume. In the Latter Costume He Would Pass
Anywhere as a Chinaman.
Why Singing Is Such An Excellent
A
PERSON'S physical virtues often
form the magic of bis song.
Slnxlng is music married to a
.nan's muscles. The melodious sounds
hlch Issue from the throat require as
much muscular exertion as you might
aip!y to pump an organ.
Singing is a mosaic of stimulant and
physical training. Every instant that
you lift up our voice In song there oc
cur heaves and contractions in the mus
cle Of the chest, tre abdomen, the throat,
the cheek, and even inside the abdo
men and thorax.
Theie muscle3, ai well as the liver,
stomach, apleen and dlaphrasm all move
in perfect harmony to the song. Othello
aays Desdnona could ring the savage
nees out of a bear. Scientific experiments
show the vibrations of vocal music soothe
Copyright, 1S15, by the Star Company. Grsat Britain Rights Rsisrvsd.
both the singer and the listener by the
athletic movements stirred op In the
fibres and elastic elements of the muscles.
Even where tuberculosis and some
kinds of heart disease exist, the sufferer
must needs exercise. Medical research
shews that the absence of all exercise,
except where fever Is present, Is by no
means desirable.
On the other hand, unless some gentle -sort
of muscular exertion is systematic
ally carried out, the tissues of the victim
become soft, flabby and not adapted to
strain and tension.
Singing Is thus a most praiseworthy
kind of calisthenics. It takes the place
of violent athletics and strenuous physi
cal culture. It is hsrmless. always avail
able, aud can be made to serve the pur
pose at any proper time and place.
Diagram Showing the Probable Location and Shape of the Ancient
Bridge That Connected America with Europe. The Black
Portion Are Those Now Submerged.
domestic animals and food plants with
them across the land bridge or tamed the
animals and plants they found here. The
Idea of the Atlantic bridge fits best as the
domestlo animal and plant looms up on
the historic horlion with first brainy men.
If any Mlssonrian still remains to be
shown, be has only to try the experiment
that has so often been adopted to make
good the hypothesis. Let him attempt to
separate Chinamen or Indians when a
dosen or more of them are dressed alike.
And then, there Is that early Mexican
culture identical with that of Egypt
There were vast populations of man
kind, enormously Increasing, 250,000
years and more agone. Why alt in your
' easy chair, puff up like a cobra, and im
agine that you have a monopoly on i
brains, mind and invention? In some
respects you haven't even advanced In
civilization up to the age of the lost arts
of 6,000 to 8,000 years ago. You haven't
been able to reinvent those lost arts.
Your brain case Is even smaller than was
that of prehistoric man.
I doubt if any of us living In this lati
tude have brains enough to withstand a
sudden descent of an ice age such as con
fronted first men. side step it and sur
vive it
I doubt if there Is a man living wbo
can whip a gorilla with his hands or
chlmpansee, orang or gibbon or other
huge primate as prehistoric men did and
had to do in order to exist.
Professor Van In gen's lsnd bridge
around the Arctic Circle region must
have been good travelling, according to
Gelkle, Nansen, Knowlton, Stejneger,
Ewart and other noted investigators. The
Arctlo world was sub-tropical In those
days before the formation of ice caps.
The prehistoric Westnns or nomads per
haps on horseback must have delighted
In. polar travels as much as you or I
In a hike In Central Park on a balmy lay
In June. Some of those same trees our
prehlstorio friends encountered, the
ginkgos, have been liberally transplanted
In our parks, brought hither yea.s ago
from Japan and transplanted. I regret
to note that one of them la now being
attacked In Central Park by the terrible
saprophytic fungus, Fomos leucophaeus,
Just one of the brackets of which will
shed spores enough to destroy many
other park trees. Knowlton says of tne
climate In those times, based on fossil
flora, that It seems safe to assume a
moist, warm, possibly subtropijal condi
tion. More than 100 species of fossil flora
unearthed in England, have been found
In the rocks entirely around the Arctlo
Circle.
Leonhard Stejneger, perhaps, did the
most stupendous work in compiling the
faunae and florae, whlc'j he assumed
could only have travelled across the lsnd
bridge between Scotland and Norway. In
so doing, he had to admit similar bridges
which others had set up between Scot
land, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland
and Labrador. No scientist can assert
positively that such bridges existed, no
matter how much data he collects. What
be can prove Is that uo other known
method existed in former times by which
a belt entirely around the northern part
of the globe was peopled with Identical
animals and plants, vertebrates and in
vertebrates. The fossil forms in collec
tions tell very near exactly where each
Physical Exercise
The very breathing exercises which
vocal teacher institutes go a great way
In training the muscles of the throat,
neck, back, chest and belly.
Furthermore, those same exercises
cause the muscles of the stomach and
other interior atruptures to squeese to
gether and expand.' This alternate ex
pansion and contraction in their turn
empty out the waste, useless and accu
mulated materials. Thus constipation
and its attendant ills are to a large ex
tent relieved by singing.
In brief, therefore, the sweet concourse
of vocal aounds. railed singing, undoubt
edly acts In a fashion as a substitute for
dumbells, Indian clubs, pitching quoits,
plsying golf, baseball and swimming.
Like dancing, the exercise received in
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genus originated. How did these genera
or their successors disperse? It they
could not fly or were not transported,
then he Insists, they must have dispersed
by means of existing land bridges and
occasionally by natural marine grass
rafts.
The distance between Faroe Islands
and Scotland and between tho latter and
western Norway Is 240 miles in each
case. The water depths extstlng between
them to-day and in the other spaces was
caased, geologists assert, by tlie weight
of successive tee caps, depressing the
earth crust. Some geologists figure as
many as six successive Ice caps. The
number bas little bearing on the tuatter
Ince the last one was sufficiently appall
ing to make ofr perfect navigation at the
present time, where walking had former
ly been good. I say appalling because
there Is no doubt that the last Ice cap,
still receding, northward, pounded the
earth crust down to stay where It Is,
while the first ice caps did no such stunt.
One or several times, It in assumed, tho
earth arose several hundred or more feet
after the first Ice cap receded.
Archibald Gelkle accumulated a lot of
data on the subject which remains in his
still authoritative work on "The Great
Ice Age." So. the geologist's data Is used
by paleontologists to support hypotheti
cal land bridges In order to account for
migrations of men, other mammals,
flightless birds, reptiles, crustaceans. In
vertebrates, trees, and plants which had
seeds too heavy to be borne by winds and
which sank in water rather than swim
for it.
Just how Invertebrates migrate long
distances is a matter which it Is to be
hoped Professor Ingen or others will
clear np. I have seen clams travel by
suction, but only on the bottom of water
areas. Stejneger sets np such Atalantlo
and Arctalantlc biota aa world gtrdlers
on the land bridges, but without describ
ing the process. Among these he men
tions terrestrial molhiscs, earthworms,
Isopod crustaceans, noctuid moths, bum
ble bees and an entire series of insects
of the orders of lepidoptera, hemlptera
and coleoptera.
Some of these are essentially slow
travellers and probably required hun
dreds, perhaps thousands of years to dis
perse the tremendous distances across
those land bridges and over the moun
tains and plains of th mainlands. Give
a pair of snails several millions of ytars
and they and their descendants could no
doubt populate the entire earth with helr
kind, however slow a cartoonist might de
pict them.
Among the mammals common to the
whole sectional circle are the variable
hare, the lemming, the red-backed Held
mouse, the wild reindeer, the red deer
very primitive horses and the extinct
mammoth.
When one considers the several typei
of men. other animals tnd plants thai
have apparently endured continuously
since early Pleistocene times, and some
of them much, longer. In the cold storage
section of the world, there "annot be the
slightest doubt that if land bridges ex
isted, there wss ample travelling done
over them In both directions. The
Princeton expedition will at least have
the satisfaction -hat all of the evidence
collected supports the hypothesis of a
Labrador-Scotland land bridge. Even a
Mlssourlan cannot deny that it may nave
been.
singing is more enjoyable, soothing to
the physical fabric than are gymnastics,
which a man does merely from aheer
duty. You sing with spirit and pleasure;
often you will take the prescribed course
of physical training or gymnasium work
simply because your will dictates and de
mands it; because your better knowledge
calls for It
If the encaged canary bird Imprisoned
in my lady's chamber did not trill bh
brilliant songs, he would die of inac
tivity. If the snarling, growling tigress In the
circus or soo did not emit her rumbling
monotones her muscles would wsste
away until she could not spring for ber
food
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