322 DAVKNPORT ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. 



not overlooking the equivocal pah^olithic stone implements of the 

 New Jersey river-gravels, or the so-called elephant mound and ele- 

 phant pipes — is there an archaeologist who will contend that we have 

 positive assurance of man's appearance on this continent prior to the 

 latest drift period? I believe that anthropologists are agreed that the 

 American Indian is an exotic, not an autochthon; but what period of 

 time elapsed, after the recession of the great ice-fields, before he was 

 introduced here, we have no means of knowing. Nor have we reli- 

 able data to serve as a basis for any satisfactory conjecture as to the 

 mental develoi)ment of these ])eople when they came. The relics of 

 their arts, falling in the classification of neolithic, gives color to the 

 assumption that they were already mound-builders on their arrival, and 

 flourished here for some centuries, and were found by De Soto in the 

 decadence of their ancient practices. 



To meet the insuperable negative argument of Mr. Henshaw, that 

 no rehcs of the Indian's use or knowledge of ivory have yet been 

 found here, you say: "At the era of the Mound-builders [who are 

 presumed to have made the elephant pipes] the elephant and mas- 

 todon must have nearly reached the point of extinction on this conti- 

 nent, and hence would be infrequently seen, and the article of 'ivory' 

 quite uncommon." Yet you marshal an array of many instances, and 

 ]5rofess to be able to produce many more, of the remains of man and 

 the elephant found together, in proof that the two must have been 

 coeval here for a great length of time. Perhaps you would have us 

 understand that the human remains found with the mastodon's were 

 not those of the cultured (?) Mound-builder, but of a race of wild In- 

 dians who were here prior to the coming of the Mound-l)uilder? This 

 position granted, I would ask why it is that this j^rimitive race, domi- 

 nant here for ages, when elephants and mastodons were plentiful, did 

 not learn to use ivory, or leave us some record of their acquaintance 

 with the great beasts? We have learned that, in Central Africa, the 

 most degraded and beast-like cannibal tribes, who are the least re- 

 moved from mere simian intelligence, work ivory into beautiful 'orna- 

 ments and weapons. The Root-diggers of thirty years ago, admittedly 

 the lowest known people of our continent, went naked, and subsisted 

 on roots, acorns, and vermin — like animals; yet they manufactured 

 beautiful weapons and ornaments of sea-shells, stone, bone, etc. And 

 we are expected to believe that the Mound-builders, who wrought the 

 most refractory stones into surprising shapes of elegance and artistic 

 beauty; who traveled hundreds of miles for mica and sea-shells, and 

 made all materials, from rushes to hematite and copper, tributes to 

 their arts, — and yet failed to utilize the ivory Clhat finest of all sub- 

 stances for their purposes) of the few mastodons they occasionally 

 killed or found dead! We are expected to believe that the Indians 

 who — according to Dr. Albert Koch — killed the great mastodon they 

 found mired in the Bourbeuse bottom with fire and with flint weapons, 

 feasted on his flesh, but left his immense ivory tusks untouched. Is 

 it not reasonable to believe that the very scarcity of mastodons would, 

 when one was seen by the cultured (?) Mound-builders, inspire them 



