January
THE MOmTAIN TRAIL
Pape 1
The I-!ystery of Easter Island The statues may have religious mean
ing. The natives killed and ate their
On Easter morning about 236 years enerd.es though they were afraid of their
ago, a Dutch explorer named Jacob Rog.gi^een spirits. The statue heads, the, may fee to
landed on a small island not recorded on ward off spirits of the dead. The nato.ves
any of his charts. The little island was also thought that the "energy/- of life"
about 11 miles in length and stood alone was stored in the head ctnd that stone
in the South Pacific 1,000 miles from any was durable.
other island and about 2,000 miles west of No one knows where the first ■’nhabit-
Chili., They named the island appropf=i.s±‘« 'ants of Easter Island came from or f'lhojjiade
ely Island., " these ancient statues. No one livinc^ there
Sa-.ter Island is very bleak, mth no tod.-y Imows. So little can be found that
treec and little grass, Valcano craters scientists have no positive answer.^
dot 'v.he bairren plains and P'iant cliffs So the m'^^stery of Easter is still
r.'Lsa to distances of 1,000 feet. The in- unsolved.
habLT-ants of the island a.oe remote and un- Tina Harbison
friendlj^ and speak a language that is like
Pc]..7riT.'5ian but their skin is darker than North Carolina
Pclyr.e-'-iia’iv The island has come to be
also c-.lled ''island of Death”. Of all the states in the Uniion, Nor-th
Tl?e mysterieB of Easter Island grew CaT>olino is among the most c'j.stj.nt.'ive
out of c strange discovery. Scattered all and most intercst?.ng. '^Tith a recorded his-
over the island are hiige statues with gia- tory datinp: back to the sixteenth century
nt faces carved in stone. All expressions when De Soto’s exoedition nassed through
are alike showing anger and fierceness, wha^t is now the western part of the state
They all have thin lips, huge noses, mde and when Sir '^i^alter Ra3.cigh sent to Eoa-
nostrils^ and deep-set eyes, high forehead nok'e Island the first English Colony ?.n
and long ears. Each head is around thirty America, North Carolina h^'^s nlayed a
fee'o tall and weighs from fifty to sixty leading ■n-'^rt :i.n the develorment of our
tons. Sonia stand upright gazing at a country.
barren desert or at the sea while other ~ During the early part of the last cen-
have fallen on their faces or on their tury, N-rth Carolina advanced slow3.y com-
-pared to other states, and as a result be-
Lt last the place where those statues came known RLp 'Tinkle" a,nd
were :Lace was found hi/.fr up in the crater gained a re^utat.j.cn for be'ng r.luggish and
o:; a vo:. c ino on one end of the Island. backr^ard. rceent dccadcs, however,
In tlJ..« c^rater are 13? other sTiatues, some it has moved forw' ri so repidly thnt H-.-oday
near.:y co'Toj et/od, some hardly begun. The it j_s ijok'jci uoon '^s one of the most pro-
crc-tr^r 13 r.ovj abandoned and uhe tools, left'^ressive suates in the ent'^'re nation,
l^^ing aroav.g, as if the workers left their North Carolin-'^ is the nation’s lead-
work'^and ilsd wildly awa:/. still lie there ing tobacconist and textile iiroducer.
where -&he work men dropped them. Some facts about this as follows:
Gaston Courtry,with i^o^^than-100 tex-
How the huge statues were moved as far tile mills ranks fj.rst in the nation,
as ten miles fromx where they were mr^de The larost denium mill in the T'To4-^
wi-thout the use of trees for wooden roller is at Miite Oak Plants Cone Malls, Greens-
±r not IrroTjn. Tlie only e:n:)laniation the boro. Also the worldfe lar^c.st overall
native- a’i/e is that they "flew" from the factory, Blue Bell Glove Corroany, is at
cx’ater; Txiis :s perhaps ant explanation Greensboro.
in that che volcano may have erupted' and Cannon J‘'ills at Kannanolis is the wo-
throT^ them out but it hardly seem.s probabltlds largest towel iro-lls,
VJhy weren’t the others now in the crater The lar-^est group of cordage mills
thrown out or distroyed? Also the statues in the workd are at Hickory and Granite
proved to be breakable, m.ade of crumbly la-Falls.
Va, so why didn't they break? No one The worlds largest dam.ask mill is Ros-
has found the answers. mary Manu, Co, at Roanoke Rapids.
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