INTERESTING ARCHÆOLOGICAL DISCOVERY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1305, 3 August 1886, Page 3

INTERESTING ARCHÆOLOGICAL DISCOVERY.

j M-jor Powol’, Chief of the United States I Geological Survey, has di covaiei hi New Mexico, near Calefonnia Mountain, what 1 he pronounces to bo the o’deat human I habitation upon the American continent, j The mountains In this vicinity,” eaya a I Santo Fe paper, “ are covered with huge beds of lava, in which the prehistoric man I and his comrades have excavated square I rooms, which were lined with a species of I plaster made from the Isvj, and In these r< oms were found various evidences of an advanced civilisation, among them being a species cf cloth made of woven hair, and i a large number of pieces of pottery. In the sides of the rooms cupboards and shelves were excavated. 7n a little concealed niche there was discovered a small figure resembling a man done up in a cli.ely woven fabric, which, with the tiuoh of the hand, turned to dust. It was blackened and crisp like the mummy cloths in Egypt. In all, some sixty groups of these lava villages we e found, | there being about twenty houses in each group. The evidences of civilizition were similar to, but removed by their crudity and want of skill a considerab'e distance from, the article found in the cliff b -uses, wh>ch have been fully described in the reports of the Geological Survey.