The Aurora, 1885 The Aurora 3-1885 The Aurora 13.1 Iowa State Agricultural College Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/aurora_1885 Recommended Citation Iowa State Agricultural College, "The Aurora 13.1" (1885). The Aurora, 1885. 9. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/aurora_1885/9 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the The Aurora at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Aurora, 1885 by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. !AAAAil.AAA~_!.AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAftAAAAAAA.AA~~-1_ A A I, A A A 1±A A .<.L A A A A A A A IO-W-A STATE A A A A AGRICULTURAL IA COI~LEGE. ,A A 'A IA IA, ~ARO::S::, 1885. Al ' Al A l Al A iA IA A America'I! A The Voice of 1 A SCIENTIFIC: A Alcohol and the Nervous Syt- ALUMNI ......................... 20 A sem. 7 ADVER'£ISEMEN:TS. 21 A The Air We Breathe.... ... ... 10 DIRECTORY ...................... 22 A Insects in their Winter Quar- A ~:AA~~;:::=~AAAAAAAAAAAAJi - - - ---.-------------l ]. H. Pickett & Co., Rf) Gf) COOK, DEALERS 'N PHOTOGRAPHE Drugs, Medicines a cl Ohemicals, Uses the lightning process. Groups tal! P erfu ery, Soaps, :>s, Hair in one second. Will compare work and Cloth Brush'd::.,. c and any photographer in the State. ~~:1EtL r~•-i:1cles, Artists Ma­ AMES, terial, Etc., Etc. School and Miscellaneous Books, Fine GEO. G.· TILDE Stationery, Etc., Etc. ---DEALER IN--- PRESORIPTIONS A SPEOIALTY. PALACE DRUG STORE. Dry AMES, IOWA. Bigelow & Huntington, New firm, new stock and low pric1 DEALERS IN Call and see. DRY GOODS, LADIES' AND MISSES' FINE SHOES, & CARPETS. .A.::M:ES, J:OVv CLOTHING A SPECIALTY. AMES, IOWA. J.E. McCORMICJ Specimens for the Museum We ask students, graduates, and all oth­ er friends of the College to rem/'3:r.bor us in the way of museum specimer,s Merchant i Tailo Fossills, Boci:ks, CCo~Jls, and other similar speciruens of value, If 1 l'l.N:,Jl l: ,JNE OF GC,ODS ALWAYS ON HAN in doubt as to the value n!: ·a spe~i:ruen for our purpose, write to us and inquire. We want, also, Skulls anri Ski.w; o: Quadrupeds and Birds, Eigs, Ovei· G. & P. Hntchinson'sStore Nests, Shells from our Ponas, Insects, Insect work. Correspondence upon insects particularly requested Address, AGRICLTURAL COLLEGE MUSEUM. NOURSE"li! (CARE OF PROF. OSBORN] .A.MES, IA. HEADQUARTERS FOR CHARLES E. HUNT, Oranges, Lemons, Bananii DENTIST, CANDIES, NUTS, ETC., ETC. ROOMS: RESIDENCE, OPP. WEST HOUSE ff" All Goods delivered free of char Wagon leaves store at 3 p. m. every da}j .A..::M:ES, J:OVv.A.. S. A, NOURSE ••sc:CE::t,::!"CE "'vv:CT::S: FB.A.CT:CCE.'1 Vol. XIII.] Iowa State Agricultural College, March, 1885. [No. 1. AMERICA'S LOST EMPIRE. of ruins, found in Central America and Yucatan, not inferior to those of Mystery is ever charming. On the Egypt, they describeinglowingterms banks of the Ganges, in the valley of the paintings and statuary found and the Nile, under the ashes at Pompeii, award the highest praises to their au­ in the land of Judea, the scholar seeks thors. The completeness of the ruins for the secrets of the past. For as­ testifies to their age; but, when we sistance he turns to China, with her learn that the highways of the ancient record of four thousand years. He cities were made of the fragments and searches along the lakes of Switzer­ pottery left by nations gone before, land and the sands of Arabia only to the mind spemilates in vain as to their find new mysteries at every step. antiquity; we enter an infinity whose The old world teems with buried se­ limits we can not estimate. How crets. They lie at Herculanaeum, at many nations have perished, how Troy, among the mountains of Eu­ many languages have ceased to exist, rope, on the plains of Asia, in the how many splendid civilizations have jungles of Africa. But when we crumbled, how many temples and turn from the East to the West, it is towers ha,ve gone to dust in this land as from light to darkness. This is of wonders? It is a question it were veritably a continent of mysteries. fruitless to ask; but the Sixteenth Long before the appearance of that Century found America the abiding great voyager who dared to brave the place of a remarkable and highly de­ perils of the Atlantic, civilization had veloped civilization. All Europ9 list­ fl.ourished, fallen, and risen again, on ened greedily to the tales of the ex­ this side of the sea. The ruins left by tent, power, and riches of the lands in ancient races were already overgrown the new world-lands offering honor by forests and the people forgotten. to the lowly, perils to the adventur­ Tradition even gives them no place, ous, wealth to the needy, freedom to yet enough remains to attest their the persecuted. Soon arose that pas-. greatness. sion for conquest which was the mov­ Investigators tell us of the oceans ing spirit of the Sixt~enth Century. •10 -1.! 'l'ifl 1: ''"' .11.,;,,t, 1'1i, 2 LITERARY. To the gratification of this passion from Yucatan to the forests of Cali­ everything was sacrificed; that the fornia, from the Gulf of Mexico to western continent might be subdued, the Pacific Ocean. all other objects were made subordi­ The government was an elective nate. At the common altar Kings of­ monarchy, the king being chosen fered their armies, Nobles their for­ from the royal family by a vote of the tunes, Priests their lives. The three nobles. Society possessed all the di­ great forces, Despotism, Feudalism, vision found in Europe at that time; and Catholicism, united in an attempt a royal family, an aristocracy, . a to master the new land of promise. priesthood, a judiciary, and the com­ They sent across the ocean their sturdy mon people. The people were en­ soldiers and devoted priests, who ex­ lightened, industrious, prosperous. plored the mysterious land, built their The magnificence of scenery and forts, planted their emblems, and majesty of the works of nature sur• claimed all as their own. Many rounding them had aided the devel­ were the nations conquered, many opment of a religion of surprising the lands won. beauty, in many respects approaching To us the subjugation of one peo­ Christianity, marred only by the rite ple possesses a peculiar interest-the of human sacrifice. conquest of our neighbor to the In the heart of the valley of Mexi­ south. co nestled the capital city, enriched More than three centuries before with public works, beautiful by na­ the conquest there had appeared in ture, and adorned by art. Let your the valley of Mexico a wandering fancy paint for you the picture. people from the north-west. They There standing in the centre of her founded their city upon the spot pre­ dominions is the queen city of the scribed by an oracle. Providence western world. Her defences pro­ helped them, nature smiled upon vided by nature's hands are broad and them. Established in a country pos­ deep; her gates secured by bolts and sessed of every variety of soil and cli­ bars. Within, the long lines of glit­ mate, of inexhaustible mineral re­ tering edifices, struck by the rays of sources, and of a scenery beautiful and the setting sun, tremble on the blue picturesque beyond comparison, the waters of the lake like a thing of fairy people flourisbed, the city grew, the creation rather than the work of hu­ territory increased, the population man hands. Thousands of canoes dot multiplied. From the small begin­ the broad bosom of the lake, or flit ning by the side of the lake Tezcuco with ghostly swiftness [along the the nation slowly extended, until now canals. The streets, thronged there was one grand Empire number­ with a thrifty populace re-echo with ing ten million souls and stretching the hum of busy tradesmen. She is LITER.ARY. 3 the centre of the western world. Ev­ of these the beseiged struggled against erywhere is peace, prosperity, happi­ fate. Honorable terms of surrender n0ss. they derided, bribes they spurned, Upon the evening breeze there starvation but nerved them to fiercer comes a whisper of strange beings ap­ battle, to pestilence they y!elded pearing at distant parts of the empire. without a murmur. Babylon fell Then come stories of their powers, from her high estate; Egypt, hoary their deeds, their cruelties. Monte­ with age, tottered from her throne; zuma, the fierce warrior and crafty Rome drunken with power, reeled statesman, is stupified with dread at and fell; yet these had seen their the approach of this new race. On­ glory depart. Not so with Mexico. ward come these mighty men; from Here was a nation cut off in her fair: the coast to the highlands, from the est youth, an empire destroyed in the highlands to the mountains. A party zenith of her power. Mexico was no of Spaniards ascend Mount Popocate­ longer Mexico; there remained only a pelt, up beyond the line of vegetation, heap of ruins lapped by the blue wa­ and then far in the distance see the ters of the lake. Where in history shining temples and glittering domes do we find a more moving spectacle1 of the city of Mexico. Onward they Oh, for the power of a Homer, that I go and soon reach the capital.