4 DAVENPORT ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. 



collection and preservation of relics and old documents, illustrative of 

 the early history of this section of country. 



In conclusion, I would beg leave to make a few remarks upon archae- 

 ology, suggested by our recent acquisitions in that branch of science, 

 especially the last tablet and the animal effigy pipes. In regard to the 

 tablets, descriptions and photographs have been submitted to the exam- 

 ination of the leading archaeologists, both in this country and in Europe, 

 What the former thought of them you have been already told ; of the 

 latter you have seen a very favorable opinion expressed by the Interna- 

 tional Congress of Americanists, at their last meeting, held at Luxem- 

 burg in 1877, a translation of which was published in the Gazette of 

 this city. 



If there are now any doubters of the authenticity of "these precious 

 monuments," as Mr. Lucien Adams is pleased to call them, they are 

 silent, either from their doubts having been dispelled by the accumulation 

 of material evidence, or it may be that they deem us so incomgible in 

 the continued fabrication of these relics, that remonstrance would be 

 wasted on us. 



No one, as yet, has suggested any reading or solution of the letters or 

 hieroglyphics, which are also repeated, some, at least, in the last found 

 tablet. But we need not despair. That venerable archaeologist, Mr. S. 

 F. Haven, in speaking of these very inscriptions, says* : " Tliese are, at 

 present, unintelligible, but may hereafter disclose their secrets when the 

 habits of thought and the methods of expressing and recording facts and 

 ideas peculiar to the American races of both continents, shall be better 

 comprehended and compared. This must be the fruit of information 

 more accurate and general, and philosophy more profound, than has 

 heretofore been applied to their elucidation."' 



Of the pipes, the bear depicted by the artist must have been the 

 grisly, whose habitat must have been more extended then than at pres- 

 ent, being as he is, the counterpart of the great cave bear so common in 

 Europe in prehistoric times. In the elephant pipe we have the keystone 

 of the arch of evidence, which has been building for so many years. 

 Regarding this obvious effigy of the mastodon, we can echo the words of 

 the original description of the elephant mound of Wisconsin in the 

 Smithsonian Report for 1872, which says : " Is not the existence of such 

 a mound good evidence of the cotemporaneous existence of the mastodon 

 and the mound-builders ;" and strange to say, both the mound and the 

 pipe are entirely destitute of tusks. 



One glance at the ever-recurring question, " Who were the mound- 

 builders V" and I have done. 



The most commonly accepted theory is that they were a kindred race 

 to the Aztecs, and that, as the traditions of the Natchez affirm, all 

 the valley of the Mississippi was peopled by a race of sun worshippers 

 like themselves. But this was a comparatively recent event. There 



♦Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, No. 71, p. 18. 



