appendix: elephant pipes and inscribed tablets. 



339 



from the accusations of the Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian 

 Institution. Those who have known the history of the Davenport 

 Academy, its struggles and triumphs for the love of pure science, and 

 the extreme caution of its leading members, regretted that anything 

 should appear in a Government publication reflecting upon their veracity 

 or honesty. Tablets are common enough, being made of slate and 

 other materia], and worn to-day by the present Indians of British Co- 

 lumbia and Alaska. So long as they do not contain outlandish and 

 unclassifiable inscriptions, there is nothing mysterious about them. On 

 the contrary, the elephant pipes are mysteries. When I try to put the 

 cast which we possess at the museum with something else, there is 

 nothing to put with it. Professor Henry once said to one of his assist- 

 ants who discovered an unclassifiable specimen: 'That seems to stand 

 out so unsociably that we must call it an "outstanding phenomenon," 

 and wait patiently until something else turns up to go with it.' The 

 last word that should fall from the lips of a brother naturalist is ' fraud.' 



"On the other hand, barring this indiscretion, Henshaw is just what 

 Major Powell says about him. He is a very careful and skillful natu- 

 ralist. We should hail with delight the accession of all such men to the 

 ranks of archaeology, because they bring light from every side to bear 

 upon our mysteries. It should not make a particle of difference to any 

 of us whether a pipe is the figure of a crow or of a toucan, so long as 

 we know just what it represents. We may rest assured that for a long 

 time every mystery solved will be accompanied by two quite as inex- 

 plicable. 



"But, really, too much account is being made of the matter. Squier 

 and Davis are not overthrown. Their manatee, toucan, and paroquet 

 may be shot down by the ornithologist, but these practical gentlemen 

 did not care a fig about such creatures. They made the greatest arch- 

 ;\Jological survey and collections ever attempted in America, and their 

 volume will indeed be a 'monument' to their memory and to the glory 

 of its authors for all time. 



"The Davenport Academy is not annihilated. F^ven if our theory 

 should turn out true and the elephant pipe should prove a tapir pipe, 

 and we should learn that tapirs once lived in the Mississippi Valley, this 

 grand association would survive." — Prof. Otis T. Mason, August, 

 1885. 



77ic- Anierican journal of Siuiice. 



"Elephant Pipes in the Museum of Natural Sciences, Daven- 

 port, Iowa, by Charles E. Putnam. — This address, by the President 

 of the Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences, was called forth es- 

 pecially by expressions of disbelief with regard to accounts of the dis- 

 covery of 'elei)hant pipes' of soft sandstone and 'inscribed tablets' in 

 Indian mounds of Iowa, jiublished in the Proceedings of the Academy. 

 Mr. Putnam makes the following statements with regard to the finding 

 of these objects: 



"The discoveries in question are two elephant pipes and three in- 

 scribed tablets. Of the latter the first two were found in what is known 



