appendix: rt.ephant pipes and inscribed tablets. 323 



with such wonder and awe as to cause them to make some memorial 

 of it, as they did of the mythical Piasa? or by imitation of it in i^ot- 

 tery? or by their common method of sculptured foot-prints? Surely, a 

 people of such imagination and superstition as was characteristic of 

 the mound-building Indians, would have perpetuated the appearance 

 of these huge monsters in other forms than these two pipes of soft 

 sandstone, defective in the most ])rominent feature of the animal — -its 

 tusks. 



In conclusion, I need scarcely state that I fully agree with Sir John 

 Lubbock, that "there does not, as yet, ajjpear any satisfactory proof 

 that man coexisted in America with the mammoth and mastodon." 

 ("Prehistoric Times," first edition, i)age 236.) The author of your two 

 elephant jiipes may have seen a living female elephant, or a crude 

 school-book engraving of it, perhaps at Honfieur, or Dieppe, or Paris, 

 or elsewhere. Their antiquity, in my opinion, can in no event exceed 

 — more probably falls short of — the early amalgamation with the trans- 

 Mississippi Indians of the coureurs de bois, whom neither the power of 

 Cartier or Champlain, nor the authority of the Church, could control. 



I have not seen your inscribed tablets; but assuming the faithfulness 



of their representation in the second volume of Proceedings of the_ 



Davenport Academy, I would, without hesitation, relegate them to the 



class of so-called relics to which the Grave Creek tablet and the 



I.enape stone belong. t t- .-. ^ r rx 



' * J. F. Snvder, M.D. 



From Prof. W. J. McGee, U. S. Geological Survey, IVas/iiiigtoit, D. C. 



[As .1 citizen of our Stale and a member of our Academy, Professor McGee is held in liij^li 

 esteem, and with all his associates here his utterances will always have respectful consideration. 

 V/hile, in this instance, we have been compelled to disret;-ard his counsel, we have no reason to 

 doubt his entire sincerity. With Professor McGee's permission, we now present our readers 

 with his correspondence' havinfj reference to the cjuestions under discussion. The fact that it 

 was not intended for publication renders it no less valuable. ] 



Department of the Interior. 



United States Geological Survey, 

 Washington, D. C, April 8, 1885. 

 Judge Charles E. Putnam, Woodlawn, Davenport, lotva, — 



My Dear Sir: I have great pleasure in acknowledging the receipt 

 of your "Vindication of the Authenticity of the Elephant Pipes and In- 

 scribed Tablets" in the Davenport Academy, together with the coi)y 

 of the Daily Democrat containing an editorial relating thereto. I have 

 read both with great interest, but, I must confess, a good deal of pain. 



Certainly the Academy has nothing to gain from controversy with 

 the Smithsonian Institution, with the Bureau of Ethnology, with Major 

 Powell, or with Mr. Henshaw ; and it appears to me that the tone of 

 your vindication is controversial rather than judicial. 



The Bureau of Ethnology is endowed with money and brains, and, 

 by virtue of its connection with the Smithsonian Institution, as well as 

 the eminence of its Director, must be regarded as one of the leading, 

 if not the leading anthropologic institution in this country. Its friend- 

 ship and coo[)eration are therefore valuable to all other such inslitu- 



