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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    my support in this as in other matters. Under existing social conditions no human institution can be abso- lutely divorced from its founders and leaders; and accordingly, though personally I hold the to be of subordinate importance, it seems to me to be admissible to speak of “ friendship,” “ enmity,” and other human sentiments in connection with such institutions. So the coop- eration that has existed between the Bureau of Ethnology and your Academy may be regarded as an ex])ression of the “friendship” existing between these institutions. However, it is not worth while to discuss an immaterial point. Certainly we are agreed in this — that some vin- dication was so urgently demanded that the matter could not be ignored by the Academy. It was only the personal element that enters into your vindication that I thought of characterizing as controversial. The entire docu- ment is judicial in the sense in which you use the term, for it unques- tionably contains so full a statement of the questions at issue as to afford the public generally the means of deciding independently upon the merits of the case. I am pleased to learn that the course of the Academy has received so general commendation from archaeologists, and trust the effect of the episode will be to augment the high esteem in which the iVcademy is already justly held at home and abroad. I have ]3leasure in acknowledging receipt of three additional copies of the “Vindication.” I will see that they are well placed. Believe me to remain, my dear sir, Very truly yours, W. J. McGee, Geologist. Judge C. E. Putnam, I'Vood/awn, Davenport., Iowa. From Prof. Spencer F. Baird, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. [With the understanding; that the Bureau of itthnolog-y was under the control of the Smith- sonian Institution, and entertaining- a- very high opinion of the exact scholarship and profound scientific attainments of its distinguished Secretary, we sought to ascertain how it happened that so faulty and unscientific a paper as that of Mr. Itenshaw’s should have been included in a Gov- ernment publication. The results of our investigations, as disclosed in the following; corre- spondence, will be re.ad with interest.] Davenport, Iowa, May 31, 1885. Prof. Spencer F. Baird, Secretary of the Smithsoniati Institution, Washington, D. C.,— Dear Sir: Duriug the past summer an eminent archieologist di- rected our attention to an attack made upon our Academy by Henry W. Henshaw in the Second Annual Rej^ort of the Bureau 'of Ethnol- ogy, and kindly forwarded us a cojiy of the publication which he had received from the Bureau, for our ins])ection. In expressing his con- demnation of this paper, this gentleman strongly advised us to have the matter presented as a jiroper subject for Congressional inquiry. After careful consideration, however, we decided upon a different course.