APPENHIX : KI.Kl'HANT PIPKS AXD INSCRlliKI) TABLETS. 269 



absence of "tusks" in both mound and pipes, Mr. Henshaw is doubt- 

 less correct. This omission in the pipes, however, could be sufficiently 

 accounted for from the difficulty the ancient artist would experience in 

 representing them in the soft sandstone used for the purpose of this 

 carving. As will be seen, Mr. Barber adopts this view : 



"It is, to sav the least, a singular fact that the most characteristic feature of this 

 pachyderm, the prominent tusks, should have been omitted both in the pipe sculp- 

 ture and the 'big elephant mound,' if the ancient Americans were acquainted with 

 the model. The long, slender, curved tusks, however, would be difficult to imitate, 

 either in the miniature stone sculptures or the embankments of earth, and might 

 have been purposely ignored." * 



In his "Inglorious Columbus" Mr. Edward P. Vining also notices 

 these omissions, and suggests this plausible explanation : 



"There are in the possession of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Davenport, 

 Iowa, two carved stone pipes, of which representations are given. * * * They 

 seem to be unmistakable representations of an elephant, or some closely allied 

 quadruped, and their makers must have been acquainted with the animal. The 

 Davenport Academy also have a tablet, found in a mound near their city, contain- 

 ing some thirty rude pictures of animals. Most of them can be recognized, and 

 among them there are two that seem intended for elephants. It may be worthy of 

 notice that in these drawings, in the pipes, and in the sculptures of Yucatan, the 

 animal's head is uniformly represented without any trace of tusks. In that other- 

 wise truthful representation of the mastodon, the elephant mound of Wisconsin, 

 the artist has also totally omitted the tusks, and shortened the trunk to very mod- 

 erate dimensions — surely not for want of space, for the whole animal has a length 

 of over one hundred feet, and a proportionate height. There therefore seems some 

 reason for believing that an animal much resembling the elephant, but destitute of 

 tusks, existed in America up to a comparatively recent date."t 



In his "Mammalia" Figuier remarks, concerning elephants' tusks, 

 that "in the females they are sometiiries very shghtly elongated, and 

 do not proiect beyond the lips," and that "in the Indian species they 

 are indeed wanting in the females; so also, either one or both of them, 

 in not a few of the males." ;[ Mr. John Gibson also makes the state- 

 ment that "in the Asiatic elephant the tusks grow to a considerable 

 size in the male, but are wanting in the female; while in the Ceylon 

 elephant tusks are also absent in the female, and only exceptionally 

 present in the male."§ Taken in connection with the supposed 

 Asiatic origin of the aborigines of the Pacific slope, these interesting 



* American Naturalist for A|iril, 1SS2, p. 277. 



j " .\n Inglorious Columbus,'' pp. ftog-fSii. 



:f " Mammalia," by Louis Fif^^uier, p. no. 



§" Encyclopaedia Britanica," ninth edition; title, "Elephant." 



[Proc. D. a. N. S., Vol. IV.] 30 [Dec. 4, 188.5.] 



