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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



a step. Asia and Africa have not yet 

 yielded up any profound secrets; and 

 as for the troglodytes of America, who 

 can tell ? 



Many European archsologists hold 

 that if we will but apply ourselves we 

 shall find proof of aboriginal existence 

 as ancient and primitive as anything so 

 far discovered in the Old World. For 

 instance, Professor Hugo Obermaier, 

 lately of the Institut de Palasontologie 

 Humaine, of Paris, with whom some 

 four years ago I had the privilege of 

 working for a few weeks in the famous 

 Castillo Cave in Spain, once wagered 

 his head on the outcome. At another 

 time he offered to come over to Amer- 

 ica to find for us the necessary evi- 

 dence "inside of three years." I had no 

 such sanguine expectations; in fact, I 

 thought I had reason for being incred- 

 ulous; but there was something of a 

 challenge in his attitude, and I was 

 made to feel in honor bound to do some- 

 thing about it. The war has played 

 havoc with his own plans, but he has 

 not let me forget mine. His letters 

 usually end with the repeated query, 

 "Have you found Palaeolithic man 

 yet?" 



The state of Kentucky has many and 

 peculiar claims upon our interest — geo- 

 graphic, topographic, geologic, scenic, 

 historic, and romantic, as well as ar- 

 chfeologic. Under the circumstances 

 no one will pretend to do justice to this 

 section of our coimtry in a few para- 

 graphs, and we shall have to be content 

 in this place with suggestions rather 

 than delineations. 



We have all read of Kentucky as the 

 "untrodden wilderness" in which Daniel 

 Boone played the hero. This sturdy 

 pathfinder may have suffered somewhat 

 at the hands of modern historians, but 

 there can be no doubt that his exploits 



have laid hold on the popular imagina- 

 tion, for many caverns — some that he 

 never could have used as rendezvous — 

 have been named after him; and as for 

 his beloved wilderness, it is still there. 

 The virgin forest I had little occasion 

 to enter, but from all accounts it is, 

 and always was, far less impenetrable 

 than the half despoiled timberlands of 

 today. To one accustomed to the vast- 

 ness of the North American prairies 

 and to the grandeur of the mountains 

 and the mesas beyond them, there is 

 something confining and repressing 

 about a merely undulating forest coun- 

 try. It seems paradoxical that the 

 spirit of freedom should have flourished 

 in the valleys of Greece and of Switzer- 

 land, unless perhaps the secret lies 

 in the provincializing nature of the 

 topography. Eeferring to Switzerland, 

 I was always conscious of a longing to 

 be on top of the mountains where I 

 could look away; although her scrupu- 

 lously kept valleys with their matchless 

 lakes and all that, evoked a response, 

 to be sure. And so with Kentucky : 

 you cannot see the forest for the trees, 

 as the saying is, and you cannot find 

 your way anywhere. In the Southwest 

 one may keep his course for days by 

 merely watching some familiar moun- 

 tain peak on the horizon, but here it 

 seems a risky thing to leave the beaten 

 path without a guide. The novice 

 would soon exhaust himself fighting 

 through the brambly undergrowth, and 

 he might slip into a "sink hole" and be 

 lost forever in a great and fascinating 

 underworld. 



But if the aspect of grandeur seems 

 wanting in Kentucky, it does not mean 

 that scenic charm is not there. On the 

 contrarv, it is everywhere; biit you 

 have to view it one detail at a time. 

 The field, the forest, the hill, and the 

 stream— each and all make their spe- 



