s
Conservative. 13
ra
VP .
. , .
appears in the
journal of a , traveler through this region
in enrly days :
"Drew near to Council Bluffs , and
passed down from the high rolling
prairie into the rich alluvial valley of the
Missouri. The mounds , which some
have called the work of unknown gener
ations of men , were scattered here in all
varieties of forms and magnitudes ; and
thousands in number , and perhaps I
may say ten thousands. Some of these
mounds were conical , some elliptical ,
some square and others parallelograms.
One group of these attracted my atten
tion more than any others. They were
twelve in number , of conical form , with
their bases joined , and twenty or thirty
feet high. They formed about two-
thirds of a circle , with an area of two
hundred feet in diameter. If these were
isolated , who would not say they are
artificial ? But when they are only a
group of ten thousand others , which
have as much the appparance of being
artificial , who will presume to say they
are the work of man ? "
This need not have been near the pres
ent city of Council Bluffs , as there were
may places which bore that name ; but
it was on the Iowa side , and somewhere
between the Nishuabotna and Bellevue.
Who can tell anything about the mounds
mentioned ? They must have been
there , for it is no Spanish explorer who
speaks , but an American minister of the
gospel.
The now rolig'
. ,
11 i /-i
ion called Chris
tian Science reminds one of the follow
ing remark of Mr. Huxley :
"Extinguished theologians lie about
the cradle of every scipnce , as the
strangled snakes beside that of Hercules. ' '
But the question "What is a Science ? "
interposes and one wonders whether the
new religion can be truthfully called
one ?
Science 'has been termed by a learned
man , John Ruskiu , "Tho knowledge of
constant things , not merely of passing
events , and is properly less the knowl
edge of general laws than of existing
facts. "
Froude says : "Science rests on reason
and experiment , and can meet an op
ponent with calmness ; but a creed is
always sensitive. "
THE INDIAN l'OPUrATION.
An interesting feature of the census
soon to be taken is that relating to the
Indian population. Some discussion
was created recently by the statement in
an Eastern paper that there were more
Indians in this country now than there
were in the time of Columbus. There
seems to be a general impression thai
the red man is passing away , and
will in a comparative short time become
extinct. While it is true that in many
tribes no increase in births over deaths
is shown , and some have become extinct ,
it cannot be denied that as a race the
[ ndiaii is increasing rather than dimin
ishing.
A unique reason is given by an official
of the Indian office for the popular im
pression that the red man is passing
from earth. When the government
adopted the policy of segregating the
Indians in the interest of the white
settler by placing them on reservations ,
generous annuities were offered if they
would consent to the removal. Those
were the days when Indian agents
waxed fat and rich on a small salary.
It was to the interest of the agent to
show up as large a number of Indians as
possible in order to insure large disburse
ments , and , as the official expresses it ,
liaviug nothing else to do with the
money , the agent put it in his own
pocket. It was at that period that the
Indian population showed the most
marvelous increases. In those days an
Indian never died and thousands were
fictitiously born. It was later developed
that instead of there being a million
Indians in this country , there were but
a little more than 200,000. Hence the
popular notion that the Indian is dying
out , and would himself , in the natural
course of events , soon solve the Indian
problem. While the census officials do
not expect to find a very material in
crease in the Indian population , a large
decline in the population would be sur
prising to them and a slight gain is
looked for. St. Paul Pioneer Press.
DAVII ) UAIIUM A COMPOSITE PIIOT-
OGIIAPII.
Several persons in different parts of
the country having been pointed out , or
having pointed themselves out , as
the origin of the titular character in
David Haruui , " a relative of the dead
author has written D. Appleton &
Co. to say that "David , the hero ( John
Lenox ) , and the heroine ( Mary Blake ) ,
were not , to her certain knowledge ,
drawn from life. 'David Harum' may
be called a composite photograph. All
the other people in the book are entirely
creatures of Mr. Westcott's fancy and
imagination. "
POETRY , PAINTING ANI ) rUKNlTUJlE.
Rossetti insisted 011 everybody paint
ing. Books , he said , were "no use to a
painter except to prop up models upon
in difficult positions , and then they
might be very useful. " "If any man
has any poetry in him , " was another
saying of Rossetti's , "he should paint ,
for it has all been said and written , and
they have scarcely begun to paint it"
a saying , by the way , which may be
be found also in the third volume of
"Modern Painters. " Morris obeyed the
master , and took to painting. Even
when Morris took to making furniture ,
that craft was at first regarded under
Rossetti's influence as merely a means
of providing spaces for pictorial decor
ation. Morris built some enormous
chairs "such as Barbarossa might have
sat in , " said Rossetti , who proceeded to
paint their backs with subjects from
Morris' poems. London Daily News.
A Wonderful Piece of Mechanism.
Any arrangement of a wire warp and a wire
woof woven together in such a manner that
the warp or horizontal wires will stand the
strain required of a reliable fence , and the
wires so manipulated in composition and shape
that they will adapt themselves to our coldest
and hottest , weather and always stay taut ,
with cross wires woven onto fvery foot in
length , is indeed a wonderful mechanism , and
such is PAGE FENCE. Just examine a piece
of Page Fence that has been in use several
years on good solid end posts , and you will
wonder how a better fence could bo made. It
is full of common sense.
PAGE WOVEN WIRE FENCE CO. .
No. 6 Michigan St. Adrian , Mien.
i
STARCH
*
WHITE AS
SNOW
HAS NO PEER.
THE CHAMPION
FANNING MILL
AND - % -
SEED SEPARATOR.
> 4
> 4
> ; 4
> 4
t 4
> 4
> ; 4
> 4 ' -
\ \ It is light running and durable. Has
i < a gradual force feed superior to all
1 < others * Saves money and labor. Send
] \ for circular and prices. Agents wanted
i , 4 in unoccupied territory ,
t t
j | Solar JVIanufacturingf Co > ti
. . . . . . "
< - KiUlh&utli "mt * +
& ) . ( lUtB *
