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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    with such wonder and awe as to cause them to make some memorial of it, as they did of the mythical Piasa? or by imitation of it in ])ot- tery? or by their common method of sculptured foot-prints? Surely, a peo))le of such imagination and superstition as was characteristic of the mound-building Indians, would have perpetuated the appearance of these huge monsters in other forms than these two pipes of soft sandstone, defective in the most prominent feature of the animal — its tusks. In conclusion, I need scarcely state that I fully agree with Sir John Lubbock, that “there does not, as yet, appear any satisfactory proof that man coexisted in America with the mammoth and mastodon.” (“Prehistoric Times,” first edition, i)age 236.) The author of your two elephant pipes may have seen a living female elephant, or a crude school-book engraving of it, perhaps at Hontleur, or Die])pe, or Paris, or elsewhere. Their antiquity, in my opinion, can in no event exceed — more probably falls short of—the early amalgamation with the trans- Mississippi Indians of the coiireurs de bois, whom neither the power of Cartier or Champlain, nor the authority of the Church, could control. I have not seen your inscribed tablets; but assuming the faithfulness of their representation in the second volume of Proceedings of the Davenport Academ}^ I would, without hesitation, relegate them to the class of so-called relics to which the Grave Creek tablet and the Lenape stone belong. ^ ^ ‘ ^ J, F. Snyder, M.D. From Prof. W. J. McGee, U. S. Geological Survey, Washington, D. C. [As a citizen of our State and a member of our Academy, Professor McGee is held in hig-li esteem, and with all his associates here his utterances will always have respectful consideration. While, in this instance, we have been compelled to disre^^ard his counsel, we have no reason to doubt his entire sincerity. With Professor McGee’s permission, we now present our readers with his correspondence having reference to the questions under discussion. The fact that it was not intended for publication renders it no less valuable.] Department of the Interior. ) United States Geological Survey, v Washington, D. C., April 8, 1885. ) Judge Charles E. Putnam, Woodlawn, Davenport, Iowa,— My Dear Sir: I have great pleasure in acknowledging the receipt of your “Vindication of the Authenticity of the Elephant Pipes and In- scribed Tablets” in the Davenport Academy, together with the copy of the Daily Democrat containing an editorial relating thereto. I have read both with great interest, but, I must confess, a good deal of pain. Certainly the Academy has nothing to gain from controversy with the Smithsonian Institution, with the Bureau of Ethnology, with Major Powell, or with Mr. Henshaw; and it appears to me that the tone of your vindication is controversial rather than judicial. The Bureau of Ethnology is endowed with money and brains, and, by virtue of its connection with the Smithsonian Institution, as well as the eminence of its Director, must be regarded as one of the leading, if not the leading anthropologic institution in this country. Its friend- ship and cooperation are therefore valuable to all other such institu-