262 DAVKNPORT ACADEMY (JF NATURAL SCIENCES. 



man found it while planting corn on his farm several years prior to 

 that date, and attached no particular value to the relic, but had some- 

 times used it in smoking. A brief account of its finding is given in 

 the Proceedings of the Academy, and in substance is republished in 

 Mr. Henshaw's jjajjer.* It will thus be perceived that there are no 

 suspicious circumstances connected with either of these discoveries, 

 but that the surrounding and well-authenticated facts seem to suffi- 

 ciently estabUsh the genuineness of these interesting relics. 



The explicit statements of the explorers as to the discovery of these 

 relics will find strong corroboration in the early inspection made by 

 other members of the Academy, and their reports thereon. Thus, the 

 learned and lamented Dr. R. J. Farquharson, who was guileless in 

 character as he was eminent in science, in a ])aper upon the inscribed 

 tablets, bears this most emphatic testimony to their genuineness :t 



"Shortly after the report of the rliscovery, several gentlemen, officers of the 

 Academy, visited the excavation, and, through our President, reported that, from 

 the unbroken condition of the layers of shells, and from other evidence visible, they 

 were of opinion that no disturbance of the mound had taken place since the forma- 

 tion of these layers. But the indisputable evidence of the authenticity of the tablets 

 rests in the explicit statement of Rev. Mr. Gass and the gentlemen assisting him, 

 that, after the penetration of the frozen crust of the earth, they did not leave the 

 spot itutil the tablets were unearthed by the hands of the former. This forever 

 silences the doubt in regard to the intrusion or interpolation of these tablets, for, 

 taken in connection with the frozen state of the ground, it makes such an act simply 

 impossible." % 



Ecjually emphatic is the testimony of Mr. William H. Pratt, the 

 Curator of the Academy, and one of its principal founders. As is 

 well known, this gentleman has given years of gratuitous service in 

 building uj) the Davenport Academy, and it is due to his exact 

 methods and untiring industry that some scientific order has been 



♦The quotation from Barber, in Mr. Henshaw's paper, correctly states the circumstances 

 connected with the finding- of the elei)Iiant pijjes; and still, notwithstanding^ the fact that his 

 quotation refutes his statement, in order to mal<e his point he persists in s])eakini^ of Mr. Gass 

 as. the "discoverer" of both pipes! 



■]■ Proieedln-Jfs of Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences, \'ol. II., p. 107. 



Jin a private letter to Prof. Short, Dr. Farquharson thus refens to the finding of one of 

 these pipes: " Tlie ancient mounds were very abundant in that vicinity (Louisa County) and rich 

 in relics, which are deposited on the surface of the soil (not in excavations), as we found in explor. 

 ing a number. The pipe, which is of fragile sandstone, is of the ordinary Mound-builders' type, 

 and has every appearance of age and usage. Of its genuineness I have no doubt. Together 

 with the ' elepliant mound ' of Wisconsin, the elephant head of Palenque (depicted in Lord 

 Kingsborough's great work), r)ur pipe completes the series of what the French would call ' doc- 

 uments,' proving the fact of the contejnporaneous existence on this continent of man and the 

 mastodon." (" North Americans of Antiquity," John T. Short, p. .^,?i.) 



