326 DAVENPORT ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. 



cated; and I deeply regret your inference that you cannot rely upon 

 my sujjjjorl in this as in other matters. 



Under existing social conditions no human institution can be abso- 

 lutely divorced from its founders and leaders; and accordingly, though 

 personally I hold the ego to be of subordinate importance, it seems to 

 me to be admissible to speak of " friendship," " enmity," and other 

 human sentiments m connection with such institutions. So the coop- 

 eration that has existed between the Bureau of Ethnology and your 

 Academy may be regarded as an expression of the "friendship" existing 

 between these institutions. However, it is not worth while to discuss 

 an immaterial i)oint. Certainly we are agreed in this — that some vin- 

 dication was so urgently demanded that the matter could not be ignored 

 by the Academy. 



It was only the personal element that enters into your vindication 

 that I thought of characterizing as controversial. The entire docu- 

 ment is judicial in the sense in which you use the term, for it unques- 

 tionably contains so full a statement of the questions at issue as to 

 afford the public generally the means of deciding independently upon 

 the merits of the case. 



I am pleased to learn that the course of the Academy has received 

 so general commendation from archaeologists, and trust the effect of 

 the episode will be to augment the high esteem in which the Academy 

 is already justly held at home and abroad. 



I have ]jleasure in acknowledging receijit of three additional copies 

 of the "Vindication." I will see that they are well placed. 



Believe me to remain, my dear sir. 



Very truly yours, W. J. McGee, Geologist. 



Judge C. E. Putnam, 



IVoodlawn, Davenport^ loiva. 



From Prof. Spenckr F. Baird, Secretary of the Sinithsoiiian Institution, 

 Washington, D. C. 



I^With Ihc undurstamlinfi^ th.it the Bureau of i.thiiolog-y was under the control of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, ;in'l untertaininff a very hij^'n opinion of the exact scholarship and profound 

 scientific attainments of its distinguished Secretary, we sought to ascerfciin how it liappened that 

 so faulty and unscientific a paper as that of Mr. Ilenshaw's should have l)een included in a Gov- 

 ernment publication. The results of our investigations, as disclosed in the following corre- 

 spondence, will be read with interest.] 



Davenport, Iowa, May 31, 1885. 

 Prof. Spe.mcer F. Baird, Secretary of the Smithsonian fnstitution, 



Washington, D. C, — 



Dear Sir: During the past summer an eminent archaeologist di- 

 rected our attention to an attack made upon our Academy by Henry 

 W. Henshaw in the Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnol- 

 ogy, and kindly forwarded us a coj^y of the publication which he had 

 received from the Bureau, for our inspection. In expressing his con- 

 demnation of this paper, this gentleman strongly advised us to have the 

 matter presented as a proper subject for Congressional incjuiry. After 

 careful consideration, however, we decided upon a different course, 



