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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    the estimation of all intelligent readers of your very able vindication, outside of that formidable “ Bureau,” there will be unanimous a]:>proval, yet I am api)rehensive that Mr. Henshaw will be found safely intrenched behind the wing of the “ Bureau,” calmly contemplating your sharply serrated arrows falling harmlessly at his feet; but the time will come when your i)osition will be fully sustained. From Prof. Erasmus Haworth, Penn College, OsKAi.oosA, Iowa, April 4, 1885. Your pamidilet on “Elei)hant Pipes” came to me to-day. I have carefully read it, and the least I can say of it is that it is very inter- esting. All of us who are at all interested in science are indirectly interested in it. If facts which are as well established as the authen- ticity of the pipes and tablets are thus to be assailed by those who should be high authority, what may we not ex])ect in other dejDart- ments? I fear this portends an unhappy condition in scientific circles. From A. Dean, ?2sq. High Bridge, N. J., April 24, 1885. I have lately received your “Vindication” of the Davenport Acad- emy of Natural Sciences against the accusations of the Bureau of Ethnology, and thank you sincerely for your courtesy and kindness to one who must be to you a stranger. I have read your paper carefully and am delighted with it. JVIr. Henshaw’s attack seems to me to be uncalled for, cowardly, baseless, unscientific, ungentle- manly. I find it impossible to account for the seeming complicity of the Smithsonian in the assault. Prof. Henry was eminently candid and courteous, and until now I had supposed Prof. Baird was too large a man to be jealous of a society like that at Davenport. I am glad you have repelled the charges so meanly insinuated without a scintilla of proof, and that you have made the rejoinder so unanswer- able. ... I have long honored the Davenport society for its industry, and I trust it will not falter in its work because of Messrs. Henshaw and Powell. From Rev. D. W. C. Durgin. Pike, N. Y., April 27, 1885. Through your kindness I have received, and with interest read, your “Vindication of the Authenticity of the Elephant Pipes.” I had jireviously read Mr. Henshaw’s views of the elephant pipes, and speaking, as I supposed, “as one having authority,” I was inclined to accept his verdict as final, and to look upon the “relics” in question as a transparent fraud. It did not seem to me that the spokesman of a great national institution would treat with such seeming contemjit any “find” that had the least presumption in favor of its genuineness. Your “Vindication” presents the matter in a different light, and furnishes to my mind strong probabilities that the pipes are genuine.