APPENDIX : ELEPHANT PIPES AND INSCRTBED TABLETS. 293 



structive" work, commended by Major Powell, seems complete. The 

 unsupported accusation is caught up with avidity, passed from writer to 

 writer, from paper to paper, from book to book, gathering volume in 

 its passage, until at length, having attained portentous proportions, the 

 fiction may pass into history as fact. The fiction is thus fairly launched 

 on its journey round the world and down the years. It has been said, 

 though in somewhat homely phrase, "that a lie will travel from Maine 

 to Georgia while truth is stopping to put on his boots," and though 

 these should prove the "seven-league boots" of the nursery tale, it is 

 doubtful whether the falsehood can ever be overtaken and wholly over- 

 come. The history of archaeology itself is replete with instances of 

 similar wrong- doing, some of which, like that of the late Dr. Koch, of 

 Missouri, are full of almost pathetic interest. Because of his labors for 

 science, this enthusiastic explorer was subjected to a most "destructive 

 criticism" until his life went out in gloom; and now, at this late day, a 

 distinguished arch;tologist renders him this tardy but well-deserved jus- 

 tice : 



"Unfortunately, Koch's want of scientific knowledge and the exaggerations with 

 which he accompanied his story, at first threw some discredit upon the facts them- 

 selves. But the recent discoveries of Dr. Aughey, in Iowa and Nebraska, have now 

 confirmed them. There, too, the bones of the mastodon have been found mixed 

 with numerous stone weapons; and man, we learn to our surprise, armed with these 

 feeble weapons, not only did not fear to attack the gigantic animal, but succeeded 

 in vanquishing it." * 



The student in science will also recall the parallel case of M. Boucher 

 de Perthes, in France, who, for years after his remarkable discoveries 

 at Abbeville, saw them discredited, and found himself regarded not 

 only as an enthusiast, but almost as a madman. But his deductions 

 are now generally accepted; and there is no more impressive scene in 

 the history of science than that presented when, some fourteen years 

 after the publication of his first work, he stood on the si)ot of his e.xploit, 

 with representatives of the French Academy and the Royal Society of 

 England, and received their plaudits over his great discovery. It may 

 well be questioned whether progress in science has not been greatly 

 retarded by the unreasonable increduhty of its votaries. Not only in 

 religion, but in the pursuits of science as well, we too often find a stolid 

 adherence to old traditions. The religious intolerance that burned 

 Bruno and the scientific intolerance that persecuted Koch had a com- 

 mon origin. With altered environments, the fanatic who saw only 



* " Prx'liistoric America," bv Nnfl:iill-\<-, p. •57. 



[Pkoc. D. A. N. S,, Vol. IV.] :W |Dec. yi, 1885.J 



