| RHF Joke Archives |

The following is an original theory I have developed using scientific 
observation to determine historical fact:


On Monday, Cpt Wilkins took us on a tour of Ft. Sill and the surrounding
countryside.  One of the highlights of the tour was the trip to the top of Mt.
Scott, the third highest point in OK.  Mt. Scott is a huge pile of boulders
overlooking a wildlife refuge, and significant portions of the Ft Sill
reservation.  It was obviously built by pre-historic Indian farmers in an effort
to clear the surrounding land for agriculture.  They even built a road that
circled the pile several times on the way to the top and was carefully lined
with rocks to prevent their rock-bearing carts from falling.

As we examined the surrounding country I was struck by the fact that the terrain
was littered with the same type of boulders that had been used to build Mt.
Scott.  But I was puzzled as to why they would have gone to all that trouble to
move so many rocks but then to leave some scattered around.  Then I realized
that they must have been rescattered by another tribe.  But I began to struggle
with determining why they had been rescattered so randomly.  Finally, the
solution became obvious when I noticed the large herds of buffalo.  Obviously
Indian hunters had used the boulders to hunt the buffalo.  Since the buffalo
tend to clump together in herds, they would be statistically good targets for
boulders dropped on them.  Surely if a big enough boulder were thrown into a
sizable herd, it would be bound to kill a number of animals.

It was obvious where the boulders came from, and they were already at an
elevation above the plains containing the buffalo, but the problem now was to
figure out how the Indians launched the boulders.  I looked around and was
struck by the numbers of sturdy live oaks in the area.  When I saw a
particularly sturdy live oak with two main branches that split from the main
trunk into a Y about 5 feet off the ground, the method used by the ancient
Indians became obvious.  They must have used surgical tubing strung between the
trees to launch the boulders.

This was confirmed when we visited the prairie dog village, which was littered
with a large number of smaller loaf-of-bread-size rocks.  Obviously the
technique had been developed using smaller rocks on the prairie dogs, and then
simply expanded in scale to handle the buffalo.

I have been unable to locate any historical reference to support this fact, but
I know it is true since the terrain is still being used to support similar
operations as the US Army center for Artillery training.


Chris Wood
chris@austin.lockheed.com

| RHF Joke Archives |