Elephant pipes and inscribed tablets in the Museum of the Academy of natural sciences, Daveport, Iowa / by Charles E. Putnam.

  • Charles Edwin Putnam
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Elephant pipes and inscribed tablets in the Museum of the Academy of natural sciences, Daveport, Iowa / by Charles E. Putnam. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    place among the great scientific organizations of the world — with the Academy of France or the Royal Society of England. It is its noble mission to encourage original research and give proper direction to the scientific thought of our country. It will best subserve this great pur[)ose by sternly observing in its discussions the dignity and decorum of high scholarship, the serene and catholic spirit of true science. In submitting this refutation, we have sought to avoid scientific dis- cussion, and have carefully abstained from taking part in the war of rival theories. It has been our object to clear our unique relics from all taint of suspicion, and so to present them to the scientific world for careful study. Uj)on experienced archaeologists will devolve the duty of tracing resemblances and deciphering inscrij)tions; and to them will belong the privilege of determining their age and origin, and of announcing their scientific significance and value. In themselves per- haps insufficient to become the basis for jiositive deductions, these relics must take their place with other discoveries until that “good time coming,” when the basis of fact shall be deep and broad enough to allow the opening of another page in the “unwritten history” of our earth and race. The purpose of this paper will have been accomplished, if we have succeeded in vindicating a generous and worthy man from foul asper- sions; our young and growing Academy from the stigma of ]3artici])a- tion in a disgraceful deception, and our unique and valuable relics from all reasonable ground for suspicion.