Committee Appointed to Make Investigation?Light Desired on the Matter of the Canceled Orders Issued by Ex-Treasurer Stoddard?That Center Point Road.
Charley Petrovitsky, Peter Rafferty and Milvoj-Hasek are three citizens and voters of Cedar Rapids who have hitherto horne good reputations and whose records of truth and veracity have stood unquestioned. But it is different now.
Charley has for a number of years been a trusted employe of John R. Baker, and it was while out on business connected with their trade that he made a discovery which brought him into no little prominence last evening. But let him tell his own tale.
"You see it was this way," Charley said to a Gazette reporter. "I was out south of the city yesterday, and driving near to the Palisades I concluded I would go over to the river and see if I could not gather a few wild strawberres. I was wandering up and down the rocks, meeting with very little success in my search for the luscious native fruit, when I heard a great noise almost directly over my head. The noise increased rapidly and the air took on the colors and tints generally imagined to be reflected upon the walls of hades. My eyes were dazzled and my brain was in a whirl. (Poor Charley, and so young too.) Suddenly a great object fell upon the earth about forty feet from where I was standing. It plowed up the ground for several feet and finally sank into the earth full five feet, like a great meteor. From the hole which it made was emitted a great cloud of smoke of several colors and full of the most poisonous gases. The earth became hot and I was compelled to retreat several feet from my original position. I waited perhaps an hour for the ground to cool, then summoned up my courage and upon my hands and knees crawled to the spot where the mysterious object had lodged. The sand was yet so hot that I was tempted to abandon the investigation and my hands becoming so blistered that I was compelled to take off my shoes and put them on the other extremities. After two hours of hard digging I finally unearthed the object, being obliged to take it out of the hole by means of a long broked pole. I was at an utter loss to understand what I had discovered. I took it down and cooled it off in the river before loading it into my buggy, and drove at once to the city. I have only shown it to two persons, except yourself, and they are Rafferty and Hasek. Both being qualified to pass upon such matters, they have decided it to be nothing but the headlight off the airship which was wrecked at Waterloo. Their theory is that the ship was up so high when it lost the light that the detached article only reached the ground yesterday. I have written Prof. Jourgenson at Waterloo and expect to return to him the machine, the loss of which has caused him so much trouble."
John R. Baker is inclined to look upon Charley's story as a sort of "pipe dream." He says that about March 15 his rendering plant at Otis was blown up by the explosion of one of the tanks: that a brass valve was and is still missing, and that this is undoubtedly what Charley found. Mr. Baker, however, is at a loss to understand how the object could have remained among the clouds for so long a time. The mystery (?) will probably be explained later, as a scientific committee consisting of Frank Pitkin, George Peck, Lew Benedict and John Pichner has been appointed to hold a post-mortem examination and report.