Show CAKES ami holes in hills near tokyo make archaeologists archeologists wonder students divided in opinion one side say they were homes of earth spiders the other calls them beggars refuge the low ellla around the village ol 01 matsuyama in the province of salta ma japan but a few hours journey from tokyo are honeycombed with curious email carea which puzzle the students are divided into two camps in their conclusions about them one side avers that they are the ancient habitations of the folk known as tsuchi gumo or earth ders who occupied japan before the coming of the aanos the other side believes that they are sepulchers that have at different times been the refuge of beggars or outlaws writes edolsa in the technical world magazine the caves at first sight seen back of an isolated group ol 01 crypto merla trees and over a thatched cottage look much like a swallow bank the resemblance Is more noticeable ti upon nearer approach for they are set close together in uneven rows and consist of a horizontal passageway ending in a roomy excava alon they are on the couth slope ol 01 the hills a warm sunny exposure toi winter weather if the earth spiders eat in their doorways they could baa seen their enemies approaching avei the plain while the latter were still a long distance away the position of the caves Is a strategic one and adds a point in favor of the habitation theory though the caves vary in size their formation Is the same they have a small entrance five or six feet in depth which expands in to a chamber about six feet square and five or six feet high in the case of the larger caves along either side of the chamber Is a ledge seven or eight inches in height and fairly broad that may have been covered with dried leaves or grass for a bed marks of the scraping tools that dug the rock butare still to be seen to enter the larger caves one must stoop most hum bly but to enter the smaller ones it is necessary to get down on all fours or to worm oneself in serpentine fash ion doctor of the imperial university of japan uncovered during six months of excavating work over two hundred caves no doubt many more and perhaps many important secrets are still buried under the grass and trees of those gently sloping hills in some places the sandstone has disintegrated so that the roots have fallen in but on the whole the caves present L A distant view of the carea of illustrations by courtesy of the technical world magazine chicago a remarkable state of preservation it Is difficult to estimate their age but the weapons jars and household am clements ts found in them are generally believed to belong to a race who lived there long before the days of the aanos during the years 1632 65 and 78 fierce civil wars were waged on the wide plains that are now waving rice fields the combatants may have taken refuge in the cares at that time but whether those wild japanese in terror of other wild crea tares stronger of limb and sharper of tooth than themselves burrowed into the ground in order to find safety from such dangers or whether it was their custom thus to bury their dead they have left a mystery tor the scholars |