3l8 DAVENPORT ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. 



ever been reported. On the other hand, the mound builders were a 

 domestic people ; they built cities and fortifications in which to defend 

 themselves against a warlike enemy ; they made brick, smelted copper, 

 wove cloth, and moulded pottery. They were driven south into Mex- 

 ico some 1,500 years ago; how long before that they lived here it is 

 hard to tell. Trees have been found growing on top of their mounds 

 which indicated an age of more than 800 years; and the Davenport 

 elephant pipe and the picture of an elephant or mastodon on one of 

 the tablets show accurately that these mound builders knew of such 

 beasts. In 1877 Dr. Farquharson wrote of these tablets: "You need 

 scarcely be told that the recent discovery of engraved tablets of stone 

 in one of the mounds of this vicinity is one of great, even transcend- 

 ent importance, not only to scientific persons but to the world at 

 large." And again he writes, speaking of one of our tablets : "The 

 last link in the chain of evidence of the coeval life of man and the 

 mastodon on this continent bears the date of 1877, and is to be found 

 on the face of the hunting-scene tablet now before you." In Wiscon- 

 sin the mound built in the form of an elephant, 135 feet long and 66 

 feet high, is another link. The elephant pipes are still another link. 



The last ten years have seen a wonderful interest developed in the 

 mound builders question. Not only state and federal archaeologists 

 have been actively at work, but local scientific institutions and many 

 eminent archaeologists on their own account. Hundreds of ancient 

 mounds have been explored in all parts of the United States ; a few 

 inscribed tablets, beside the ones we own, have been discovered, but 

 no carving of the elephant other than the two we possess. Prof. J. T. 

 McLean, in his work on the mound builders, says: "In all the 

 mound builders' relics from the valley of the Ohio no trace of the ele- 

 phant family has been found. The remains of the mastodon have been 

 found in the gravel and other deposits. These animals must have 

 ceased to exist in the United States long before the mound builders 

 began to flourish. Still the mastodon must have existed somewhere. 

 The mound of Wisconsin is no ideal structure. If the report of the 

 Davenport Academy of Sciences is to be accepted, then this effigy is 

 not an isolated case. It states that a member of the association has 

 found a carved pipe in the form of an elephant. This, however, is not 

 incredible, on account of the discovery of the Wisconsin mound. It is 

 evident that in order to have delineated the form of this animal it must 

 have been seen. If, however, the builders of the mound saw the mas- 

 todon in the valley of the Ohio or Mississippi, then the mound build- 

 ers must be assigned an antiquity which other evidences would not 

 warrant. ' ' 



We possess probably the finest collection of relics of this ancient 

 people in existence, and I believe that these insignificant elephant 

 pipes and unintelligible tablets will some day be appreciated as of more 

 value than any "curiosity" of any kind or nature in this country. 

 Future discoveries will probably disclose the fact that these people 

 lived in these valleys several thousand years ago. Should we not en- 



