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Kansas University Weekly.
SPRING VACATION gives a student an opportunity to take spring fever.
THE Hatchet published by the Leavenworth High School and the Sentiment, by the high school at Parsons, Kansas, are two very creditable papers. They show enterprise in the schools which they represent.
REGENTS OF the University have sometimes made it a part of their duty to visit the University once every year for no other purpose than to attend the various classes and to acquaint themselves thoroughly with the needs of the institution whose welfare is so largely in their hands. Students and instructors would be glad if they would do this oftener.
A PAINTING or a bust of William B. Spooner placed in a prominent position in the library would be a fitting memorial of the greatest benefactor of the University of Kansas. When a student stands before our magnificent library building and reads the inscription, "erected through the generosity of William B. Spooner, philanthropist and merchant," he naturally wonders how Mr. Spooner looked. A likeness of Mr. Spooner should receive a prominent place in the imposing structure which his generosity brought into existence.
THE UNIVERSITY regents have held their annual spring meeting and have made some excellent appointments. Mr. R. D. O'Leary, who was elected second assistant in the Department of English is well qualified for the position, is known in the University as a thorough student and has the respect and esteem of all. He was acknowledged by his classmates to be the best student in his class of '93, which contained a number of exceptionally good men. Miss Effie June Scott, sister to Regent C. F. Scott, the newly chosen teacher in German and French is also well prepared for her work. Mr. R. C. Gowell, the new assistant in Anatomy has been teaching Prof. L. L. Dyche's classes for some time and is well liked by the students under him.
Aeons of Time.
AMERICA, THE home of the brave and the free, is considered a "New World" yet researches of modern geologists show that our continent is at least as old as the Eastern hemisphere. The Mississippi river, according to good authority, has occupied its present bed for over 100,000 years.
In digging for the foundation of the New Orleans gas works the shovelers encountering a great deal of timber gave place to a force of Kentucky wood cutters, who hewed through four successive layers of timber growth instead of soil, the lowest being so old that it cut like cheese. These trees were sometimes still standing erect. No less than ten distinct layers of cypress forests have been found at different depths below the present surface of Louisiana and yet the massive cypress trees growing upon the surface show that the level of the state has not changed for ages.
According to accurate calculations based upon the rings of growth, a cypress tree ten feet in diameter a size common in Louisiana, has an age of over 14,400 years. Beneath the roots of a giant cypress found at the fourth level in the gas works excavation a human skeleton was found. The cranium was in a good state of preservation and as was to be expected was that of an aboriginal American. Allowing 14,400 years for the present surface age of Louisiana and a like period for each of the four layers found, it appears that the human race existed at the delta of the Mississippi 72,000 years ago. The ten growths of trees found show conclusively that over 100,000 years ago luxuriant vegetation flourished in Louisiana and that "150,000 years ago the Mississippi river laved the cypress forests with its turbid waters." What does it signify then, if a dried up mummy is found in Egypt 4,000 years old when the skeleton of a man buried 57,000 years ago is unearthed in our own country.
THERE ARE enough bicycle riders in the University to form a bicycle club.