Was the great West inhabited by a race of giants In prehistoric days? R. B. Laird, who was in Kansas City yesterday, claims to have new evidence that it was. He is a New England geologist who has spent many months in making investigations in the canons, tablelands, and gorges of Arizona. He left for the East last night with his evidence, in the shape of a voluminous typewritten manuscript carefully put away in a handbag. He declined to make public the full purport of the document.

Mr. Laird makes no boast of having had a hand in the investigation but says the discoveries were made by a guide who has been a resident of Williams, A. T., for many years and who has been in every nook and cranny of the mountains in that district. The claim that there existed in prehistoric times a race of giants is old, but proofs are not found every day. In this case, they were found in the shape of immense footprints which have become hardened in the limestone formations of the district.

To substantiate his statements, Mr. Laird carries with him several photographs, showing by comparison with the foot of a miner the relative size of the giant’s foot. Some idea of its great size can be gained when it is seen that the depression in the rock strata caused by the great toe is more than twice as large as the miner’s foot. The fact that animals in prehistoric periods were of such immense size is advanced as an argument that man was also abnormally large. Laird is a firm believer in this theory.

The party of explorers with which the guide who made the discoveries entered the vast untenanted desert, which is bordered by the mountains where the discoveries were made, suffered great hardships during the trip. Mr. Laird was one of the party, and he says they ran short of food and narrowly escaped being buried in the snow before they finally made their way back to civilization. Mr. Laird refuses to give any information about himself or the nature of his visit to the East. In addition to the document in which the guide tells his strange story of the expedition, he carries in his grip several excellent specimens of rubies, a rich deposit of which was discovered by the party.

1. Source: Unknown. (Kansas City, Mo.), 17 Nov. 1899. Chronicling America: Historic American
2. Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85063615/1899-11-17/ed-1/seq-1/