appendix: elephant pipes and inscribed tablets. 345 



nearly every meeting. If at any time omitted, it is a noticeable exception. It 

 seems to have become almost a "craze," and to dominate all his thoughts. As con- 

 stant droppings of water are said to wear even stones, so, it would seem. Major 

 Powell considers that incessant iterations will finally establish his theory. Not only 

 are the proceedings of the Anthropological Society thus taken up, but the limited 

 scientific press of the country is largely occupied for the same purpose. At one 

 time Major Powell appears in Science with a statement of his Indian theory, at an- 

 other Professor Thomas occupies the pages of The Antiquarian with a restatement 

 of the same theory. Wherever in the country there is published even a semi-scien- 

 tific journal, large or small, there will be found a ready writer from the Bureau of 

 Ethnology prepared to fill its columns with statements that the Indians were the 

 true Mound-builders. 



So, too, Mr. Henshaw prepares for a Government publication an elaborate paper 

 to establish this theory, and Major Powell introduces it to the scientific public as a 

 masterpiece of "thorough study" and exact research. Then Major Powell quotes 

 from Professor Thomas, and Professor Thomas quotes from Major Powell, and 

 both quote from Mr. Henshaw, for the purpose of establishing this theory. Thus 

 reasoning in a circle, the Indian theory started out by Major Powell is returned to 

 him, thoroughly embellished, by his obedient assistants. Thereupon Major Powell 

 gravely announces to the scientific world that "many lines of research are converg- 

 ing" to tlie establishment of his new theory concerning the Mound-builders. If any 

 reader should consider this a fanciful account of some "mutual admiration society," 

 let him turn to the "Transactions" at the meeting of December igth, 1883, and he 

 will find that our statements have a substantial basis of fact: 



"At our last meeting we had an interesting paper from Mr. Holmes, who, from 

 his studies, concluded that the Mound-builders were no other than the Indians in- 

 habiting the country. Last year we had a paper from Mr. Henshaw arriving at the 

 same conclusion, from the facts discovered in another field of research. And now 

 Professor Thomas finds that some of the earth-works of this country are domiciliary 

 mounds, as suggested long ago by Lewis H. Morgan, who was the great pioneer of 

 anthropologic research in America, and, further, that the houses found in ruins on 

 the mounds are such as were built by the Indians, as recorded in the early history of 

 the settlement of this country. Thus it is that from every hand we reach the con- 

 clusion that the Indians of North America, discovered at the advent of the white 

 man to this continent, were mound-builders, and gradually the exaggerated accounts 

 of the state of arts represented by the relics discovered in these mounds are being 

 dissipated, and the ancient civilization, which has hitherto been supposed to be rep- 

 resented by the mounds, is disappearing in the light of modern investigation." 



It will be perceived that no outside investigators are referred to by Major Pow- 

 ell, and hence that the sweeping phrase employed by him, "thus it is from every 

 hand," must have reference solely to the work of his own assistants, and of these one 

 was an entomologist and the other an ornithologist, and both without any extended 

 or thorough experience in archaeological research. 



In this connection we must not omit to call attention to an injustice done Mr. 

 Holmes by Major Powell in the above quotation. The former, in his paper upon 

 "Prehistoric Textile Fabrics," thus stated his conclusions: 



"The work described, though varied and ingenious, exhibits no characters in ex- 

 ecution or design not wholly consonant with the art of a stone-age people. There 

 is nothing superior to, or specifically different from, the wfjrk of our modern 

 Indians." 



