284 DAVKNFORT ACADKMV OF NATURAL SCIKNCKS. 



A remarkable circumstance connected with the museum of the Dav- 

 enport Academy, wherein these pipes and tablets are deposited, is that 

 it has grown up entirely by private contributions. The services of its 

 workers have been rendered gratuitously. Its founders and builders 

 have been solely impelled by the love of science. Its location is far 

 removed from the centers of wealth and power. It has no endowment. 

 It has no laborers for hire. These circumstances are favorable to the 

 genuineness of its discoveries. As no pecuniary reward was expected 

 by its voluntary collectors, a principal motive to the perpetration of 

 frauds is wanting. Its poverty has been its protection, and effectually 

 removes from its museum of relics all well-founded suspicion of decep- 

 tion. . 



The Smithsonian Institution, on the contrary, has a generous endow- 

 ment. It is located in the capital of our country, and is the recipient 

 of government aid. The Bureau of Ethnology, while under the man- 

 agement of the Smithsonian Institution, is a part of the United States 

 Geological Survey, and is supported by liberal appropriations. It ex- 

 pends large sums in explorations and in securing additions to its collec- 

 tions. All these circumstances are, doubtless, favorable for advancing 

 its scientific work; and yet, in an important sense, its good fortune 

 may have been its misfortune. Its paid collectors, going up and down 

 the land in cpiest of valuable relics, may be strongly tempted to mag- 

 nify their vocations by the practice of shameless decej^tions. Its 

 wealth may invite fraud. The modern manufacturer of ancient relics 

 may turn his back upon our mendicant Academy and offer hi^^ wares 

 to these scientific capitalists. The circumstances certainly are such as 

 would give rise to suspicion and provoke scrutiny. That the Smith- 

 sonian Institution and its Bureau of Ethnology have, to any consid- 

 erable extent, been victimized by this mercenary spirit, we have no 

 reason to believe, and do not claim. The considerations advanced, 

 however, are legitimate, and will devolve upon its officers the necessity 

 of establishing the authenticity of their own relics. The shafts of crit- 

 icism so ruthlessly hurled at other gleaners in the same field may turn 

 out to be dangerous weapons, and, after the manner of the ancient 

 boomerang, may, peradventure, return to smite the senders. 



It is well known that a large number of the specimens in the National 



personal research in hazardous refjions, or exercise their ingenuity and their scholarship in at- 

 tempting to solve historical or archreological problems, we may accept thankfully the informa- 

 tion they give, without first demanding in all cases unquestionable evidence or absolute demon- 

 stration." "The North Americans of Antiquity," John T. Short, )). 397. 



