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Kansas University Weekly.
Library.
About fifty volumes of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, beginning with 1870, have been added to the Library. This is one of the most valuable additions that have been made to the department of science for some time,
A new book which should be mentioned at this time, because of the recently renewed interest in its author, is The First Crossing of Greenland, by Fridtjof Nansen, two volumes. It is translated from the Norwegian by Hubert Majendie Gepp, lecturer at the University of Upsala, and contains a short biographical introduction by J. Scott Keltie.
Another new work is a very carefully prepared new edition of The Expeditions of Zebulon Montgomery Pike, three volumes. It is reprinted from the original of 1810, and is uniform in size, style and binding with the History of the and Lewis Clark Expedition, four volumes, which was received two years ago. Both these works are edited by the well known scientist, Mr. Elliott Coues.
Valuable Relics.
The great University of Kansas has not passed through more than twenty-five years of existence without accomplishing great results.
One has only to go on an investigating tour about the University to find many things interesting and valuable. In Prof. Backmar's room, for instance, two relics of great value are kept. These are two long tables, which it has recently been discovered, were found in one of the tombs of the ancient Mound-
builders, and which are believed to have been carved by prehistoric savages.
Their markings, indeed, could hardly have been carved by the Mound-builders. Here, on one of them, are curious heiroglyphics, Phi Kappa Psies, and Beta Theta Pies, the characters so old that they are covered with moss. There "The Relation of Popular Education to Patriotism" appears, a theme which must have been discovered by Pericles in his cradle. Here is the "Conquest of Principle", showing that this conquest took place almost at the beginning of time. We do not find, "Is Peace a Dream?" and the conclusion is evident that in ancient times there were no dreams of peace.
At another place on one of these tables, appears the cut of a large and imposing "Barb."
This shows of course that barbarians existed in pre-historic times. Hold! Our imagination immediately carries us back to the time when a wide sea of buffalo grass covered sunny Kansas, when little "Barbs" the ancestors of our present "Independents" roamed the plains unterrified.
Yonder is carved the figure of a wild looking fellow kicking a foot-ball. This simple representation is of untold value to science, as it proves beyond a doubt that foot-ball did not, as currently believed, originate in England but was more or less one of the intellectual pastimes of pre-historic men. Again, with the assistance of a well developed imagination, conclusions of the utmost importance can be drawn from this carving. The little foot-ball clearly demonstrates the existence of colleges and universities in pre-historic times.
But why attempt to describe that which is beyond description. The tables are accessible to all and are amply able to speak for themselves. R.
J. FISCHER & SON, BOOTS, SHOES AND RUBBERS.
Successors to Menger Shoe Company.
742 Massachusetts St.