380 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1896. 



This paper lias notliing to do with real mammoths, when or where 

 existing. It deals only with artistic representations of the animal made 

 by prehistoric man. Certain engravings of the mammoth have been 

 found in the United States which are claimed to have been made by 

 the aborignes. The author inserts them here, so that all pictures of 

 this animal will be grouped together for comparison as works of art, 

 and not at all with the contention that they belong to the same epoch, 

 were made by the same people, or that they represent the same cul- 

 ture. The American specimens are inserted solely for convenience of 

 comparison. 



Mammoth [Lcnape stone). — Plate 16 (fig. 1) shows the celebrated Len- 

 ape stone which has been described by, and received the approval of, 

 Mr. Henry 0. Mercer, Curator of American and Prehistoric Archaeology, 

 Museum of the University of Pennsylvania. 



This paragraph has been submitted to Mr. Mercer with a request for 

 his criticism. He wrote the following : 



Eleven years liave passed, during which I have continually watched the subject. 

 I have found no reason to doubt the genuineness of the Leuape stone. The specimen 

 still in the possession of Col. H. D. Paxson is an isolated case that might well have 

 deserved prolonged study on its merits. 



At a time when uncertainty prevailed as to human antiquity in North America, as 

 to the late survival of certain Pleistocene animals like the tapir, sloth, peccary, cas- 

 toriiides, mastodon, and mammoth, and as to the true scope of Indian picture writing, 

 this surprising document came to light suddenly near a center of archaeological 

 study.' Not marred by any patent flaw, or notoriously treacherous association, it 

 seemed to invite active investigation from the outset. But the position of those 

 then responsible for the welfare of archaeology, who at little pains deposited an onus 

 prohandi on the shoulders of the witnesses for the stone and went on their way, hag 

 been negative from the first. To say again that they have not visited the locality, 

 have not addressed themselves to the pros and cons, and have ignored three other 

 carved stones found at the same locality, is to reiterate a conviction that they have 

 slighted the subject. 



It has been objected that, while the object itself was original, the 

 design or engraving thereon was modern. Mr. Mercer still believes in 

 the genuine aboriginal character of the engraving as well as of the 

 object. 



No argument is here made on this question, which belongs to archte- 

 ology more than to art, but the author sees no reason to doubt the 

 authenticity of the design or engraving, and it is i^resented as an 

 example of aboriginal American art, representative of a mammoth or 

 mastodon. Mr. Mercer wrote an elaborate description of the stone and 

 its discovery, entitled ''The Lenape Stone, or the Indian and the Mam- 

 moth," published in 1885, and the reader who desires to examine the 

 details and arguments is respectfully referred thereto. Tlie circum- 

 stances, so tar as concerns us, are that the aboriginal implement of 

 slate represented in plate 16 (fig. 1), of the form called gorget or per- 

 forated tablet, drilled and broken as shown, was found in the years 



' Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. 



