296 DAVKNPORT ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. 



indelible traces of ancestry or undoubted remains of ancient civiliza- 

 tions. In the view of the Director of the Bureau, it is true, "working 

 naturalists postulate evolution," * and he deprecates the "search for 

 an extra-limital origin" for the ancient races of North America. It 

 would seem, therefore, that he proposes to work out upon our own 

 continent the problem of man's origin and existence. Those of us, 

 however, who still hold to the orthodox beUef m the unity of the race, 

 will continue to indulge in the conjecture that sometime, somehow, 

 somewhere, by adventurous barque of some ancient mariner, by 

 bridge of ice at the north, or by a lost Atlantis at the south, a pathway 

 was opened, and the original progenitors of the races found on this 

 continent by the discoverers made their way from the great centers of 

 populations in the far orient. t Be this as it may, so far as the ancient 

 works of art under consideration are concerned, it matters little 

 whether they be traced to the ancestors of our present Indians, thus 

 showing decadence in the race ; or to the Toltec or Aztec of ancient 

 Mexico, thus indicating that, with their migrations southward, they 

 evolved a higher civihzation. There is nothing in either theory, or in 

 all of them, to require or justify the "destructive criticism" visited upon 

 the Davenport Academy and its members.;}; 



The researches of anthroi)oIogists as to the origin and antiquity of 



*" Origin of Man," J. W. Powell, First Annual Rei)ort Bureau of lithnolog^y, 1S79-S0, p. 77. 



fThe concluding- chapter of Nadaillac's " Prehistoric America " is contributed by the Ameri- 

 can editor, Mr. Dall, and his conclusions, as therein stated, are amonjif the most reasonable yet 

 advanced. He thus states his views: " Squier, Gibbs, and numerous American ethnolog-ists, 

 believed in a mig-ration from the west to South America. A northern mia;ration is almost 

 universally considered to have taken place. Probably the American races entered by both gates." 

 And in the same connection he further remarks: " That America was peopled at different times, 

 by scions of different races, is highly probable, from the physical differences to be observed 

 between the remains of prehistoric man and the complexion and features he bequeathed to his 

 historic descendants." (" Prehistoric America," by Nadaillac, pp. 52.^, 531.) 



Jin concluding- this vindication of the Davenport Academy from the unfounded accusations 

 of the Bureau of Ethnology, we desire to express our high appreciation of the great ability and 

 large acquirements of its Director, Major Powell, and of the valuable contributions he has made 

 to the cause of science. The careless supervision of the work of subordinates, which permitted 

 the publication of a paper so void of merit and so full of blunders as the one in question of Mr. 

 Henshaw, as well as the endorsement of its statements and deductions without careful verifica- 

 tion, must, no doubt, be set down as among the mistakes of an overburdened man. By the con- 

 solidation of the Government Surveys in 1S79, Major Powell became the Director of this great 

 work, and when, at the same time, the Bureau of Ethnology was established, under the charge 

 of the Smithsonian Institution, he was also a|)pointed the Director of that department. It will, 

 therefore, occasion no surprise that he is left little opportunity for calm and careful supervision 

 of the scientific work of his assistants. This fact becomes still more apparent, when it is consid- 

 ered that, superadded to the proper work of these departments, the executive management also 

 devolves upon Major Powell important and absorbing political duties. The exacting nature of 

 the duties which devolve upon the " political scientist " are graphically portrayed in the Nation 

 for August 20th, tSSj. 



