APPENDIX : ELEPHANT PIPES AND INSCRIBED TABLETS. 303 



inclined to go against the new doctrine lately started up, that they 

 were the common race of hunting Indians. This view I maintained in 

 my "Preadamites," a work with which you do not seem to be ac- 

 quainted. The crania, of which the defenders of the new view have 

 nothing to say, are irreconcilably distinct from those of the hunting 

 Indians. Very sincerely yours, 



Alexander Winchell. 



From Mr. S. \. Millku, Author of '■'■ American Palicozoic Fossils" etc. 



Cincinnati, Ohio, March 31, 1885. 

 Mr. Charles E. Putnam, — 



Dear Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your "Ele- 

 phant Pipes in the Museum of the Academy of Natural Sciences," and 

 am pleased to say, after having glanced over the pages, that your criti- 

 cif.m of Messrs. Henshaw and Powell meets my approval. They had 

 no warrant for their attack, and you are justified throughout in expos- 

 ing them ; and you might have gone further in accumulating the evi- 

 dence of ignorance that glistens upon too many pages of the ponderous 

 volumes issued by the would-be dictators of scientific learning under 

 patronage of the Government. Through the instrumentality of a 

 pseudo "National Academy," very poor timber has largely been se- 

 lected for Government work. 



All of the geological and palaiontological evidence we have bearing 

 upon the subject says man, mammoth, and mastodon were contempo- 

 raneous on this continent. Beginning with the literature on the sub- 

 ject — say from Caleb Atwater, in the American Journal of Science and 

 Arts, in 1820 — and coming down to the present time, the facts accu- 

 mulated all point one way, and are as convincing to the mind of any 

 one capable of appreciating a geological and pah^^ontological conclu- 

 sion as any other series of facts establishing a truth in science. 



I think you will find some of these facts thrown together by me in 

 Vol. IV. of the Journal of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History, 

 pp. 183-234, which is in the library of your Academy. But I was not 

 writing for the purpose of proving that man and mastodon were con- 

 temporaneous, for I did not suppose that any one willing to read my 

 article had any doubt on the subject, though I believe I incidentally 

 referred them to the most recent, or post-pliocene, age. 



The quality of the workmanship on pipes and tablets may go far to 

 test the genuineness, in the light of the vast accumulations now in the 

 hands of archaeologists, but the statement that "the only evidence of 

 the coexistence of the Mound-builder and the mastodon" rests on the 

 authenticity of these pipes, could only emanate from the ignorance 

 which controls the Bureau of Ethnology. I do not mean to under- 

 estimate the value of the pipes as evidence, for if there was any doubt 

 they would be conclusive, except to the mind of a Henshaw or a 

 Powell. Thanking you for the article, I am, 



Very truly yours, 



S. A. Miller. 



