3 io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ing the Delaware Indians with far more skill in carving, even steatite, 

 than they ever possessed. As tobacco-pipes have ever been the rarest 

 and most costly of Indian relics, special attention was given to their 

 manufacture, and very remarkable have been some of the specimens 

 which have found their way into private cabinets and public museums. 

 The history of some of these pipes is as intricate and fascinating as a 

 novel, but want of space forbids its publication in this connection. 

 Suffice it to say that the archaeologist is only safe when he exhumes, 

 in person, steatite pipes from graves, and finds other objects, either 

 under like circumstances, or sees them plowed up on ancient village 

 sites. 



So determined, indeed, are some of these fabricators of frauds, that 

 the following incident is worthy of being published, to show the in- 

 genuity they exercise in their peculiar calling. To discover an Indian 

 grave is, of course, a red-letter day for the archaeologist. Now, In- 

 dian graves are manufactured to order, it would appear. At least 

 the following recently occurred in New Jersey : A Philadelphia 

 Flint Jack secured a half -decayed skeleton from a Potter's field in the 

 vicinity, and placed it in a shallow excavation on the wasting bank of 

 a creek in New Jersey, where Indian relics were frequently found. 

 With it he placed a steatite tobacco-pipe of his own make, a steatite 

 carving of an eagle's head, and beads ; with these were thrown num- 

 bers of genuine arrow-heads and fragments of pottery. The earth 

 was blackened with powdered charcoal. This " plant " was made in 

 November, and, in the following March, during the prevalence of high 

 waters and local freshets, he announced to an enthusiastic collector 

 that he knew the location of an Indian grave, and offered to take him 

 thither for fifty dollars, the money to be paid if the search proved 

 successful, which of course it did. The cranium of that Philadelphia 

 pauper passed through several craniologists' hands, and was gravely 

 remarked upon as of unusual interest, as it was a marked dolicho- 

 cephalic skull, whereas the Delaware Indians were br achy cephalic ! 



A word, in conclusion, with reference to that much-vexed question, 

 the contemporaneity of man and the mastodon in North America. 

 Constantly objects are being brought to the attention of archaeologists 

 as having some bearing upon this question. As to whether the " ele- 

 phant-pipes," of Iowa, or the " Lenap6-stone," of Pennsylvania, be 

 genuine or not, no opinion is here expressed ; but it is unquestionable 

 that many of the remains of the mastodon found in New Jersey and 

 New York are far more recent than some of the relics of man, and it 

 is simply impossible that even so late a comer as the Indian should not 

 have seen living mastodons on the Atlantic seaboard of this continent. 

 Elephant-pipes and carvings should not be condemned, merely because 

 of an impression still prevalent that the mastodon was a creature of 

 an earlier geological epoch than the recent. This is but half the truth : 

 he also shared the forests of the present with the fauna of historic times. 



