298 nAVENPORT ACADEMY OF NATURAE SCIENCES. 



problems suggested by the discovery of our remarkable relics. Thus, 

 assuming the correctness of any one of them — take it as established, 

 for instance, that the American aborigines were indigenous on this 

 continent; let it be conceded that these aborigines were the ancestors 

 of our Red Indians, and identical with the Mound-builders; consider 

 them, even as Major Powell desires, hewers of wood, tillers of the 

 soil, and skilled workmen in stone ; and then let the archaeologist tell 

 us what scientific possibility or probability would be violated should 

 we claim this ideal Indian as the artist who carved our pipes and traced 

 our tablets? In the last analysis it will be found there is nothing 

 anomalous in these relics. They are in harmony with the results of 

 recent research. They are links in the chain of evidence uniting the 

 carving ill" the cave of La Madeleine with our own elei)hant pipes and 

 inscribed tablets. They have been long foretold by our best investiga- 

 tors, and their discovery only fulfills a prophesy of science.* 



We regret the occasion which has made necessary this defense of 

 our Academy against a most unjust assault. t Many words of cheer 

 came to our young society from the illustrious and lamented Henry, 

 while he was in charge of the Smithsonian Institution ; and we can now 

 regard the Institution he has left behind him only with admiration, as 

 the emanation of his broad intelligence. The great vacancy occa- 

 sioned by his death has been well filled by Prof. Baird, and it is 

 fortunate for the cause of science that so capable and scholarly a suc- 

 cessor was found to take up and carry on the im])ortant work so 

 aus])iciously commenced. The Smithsonian Institution easily takes its 



* " We know thiit both these g^reat monsters — the elephant and the mastodon — Cimtinuud to 

 inhaliit the interior of our continent long' after the glaciers had retreated beyond the upper lakes, 

 and when the minutest detail of svnface topography were the same as now. This is proven by 

 the fact that we not imfrcquently find them imiiedded in peat in marshes which are still marshes, 

 where thej' have lieen mired and suffocated. It is even claimed that here, as on the European 

 continent, man was a cotemi)orary of the mammoth, and that here, as there, he contrilnited 

 largely to its final extinction. On this point, however, more and better evidence than any yet 

 obtained is necessary before we can consider the contemporaneity of man and the elephant in 

 America as proven. The wanting proof may be obtaiinui lo-morroiv, but to-day ive are ivith- 

 out it." Hayden's Geological Survey, 1S71. "The Ancient Lakes of Western America," bv 

 Prof; J. S. Newberry, p. 338. 



■j-The attiick made upon the Davenport Academy by the Bureau of Elthnology was wholly 

 unexpected. The paper of Mr. llenshaw has been written for several years, and yet, until the 

 recent distribution of the volume containing it, the officers of the Academy had received no inti- 

 mation that such an accusation was impending over it. We have been accused, convicted, and 

 sentenced without opjjortunity of defense. This extraordinary proceeding occasions the greater 

 surprise from the fact that our Academv is under great obligations to the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion, both under the former and present administrations, for especial favors. Through it our 

 foreign exchanges have lieen made, and we are indebted to it for large additions to our library. 

 We therefore take this occasion to distinguish between that Institiition and its "destructive" 

 Bureau of Ethnology. 



