104 DAVEXPORT ACADEMY OF XATURAL SCIEXCES. 



may never be deciphered. But we must bear in mind how very long the 

 Egyptian hieroglyphics remained unread ; that until quite recently the 

 cuneiform inscriptions were a sealed book. Indeed, the reading of them 

 was for a long time deemed an impossible feat, and the very theory that 

 there was any meaning in the complicated arrangement of wedges, was 

 pronounced absurd by many wise antiquarians. Therefore, let us not 

 despair, but rather let us indulge the hope, though it may seem to some 

 a frail one, that this is but the first of a series of such discoveries ; that 

 in time our Eosetta stone may be found, and that in the line of our 

 learned occidentalists, there will arise a future Champollion, having a key 

 to unlock this American language. 



Here, as well as anywhere, I may mention that one great objection to 

 the reception of this or any other discovery of an inscription, seeming to 

 come from the mounds, arises from the fact that most writers on Ameri- 

 can antiquities of any authority, however much they may differ on other 

 matters, seem as one on this point, that no American race ever had a 

 written phonetic language ; some even go further, and say that as no 

 evidence of such has been found, none ever will be found. 



Schoolcraft,* speaking of the inscription on the Grave Creek tablet, 

 has the following empliatic language : " It would contradict all our actual 

 knowledge in this branch of American Archseology, to admit the pos- 

 session, by them, at any period known to us, of an alphabet of any kind. 

 The characters employed In picture writing by the Toltecs and Aztecs 

 were symbolical, and they have left irrefragable evidences of their high 

 ■^jroficiency in them, but nothing more. There can be no pretence that 

 any Indian race w^ho e^er inhabited this valley possessed an alphabet." 



Again he says:t '' Nothing is more demcyistrtible than that whatever 

 has emanated in the graphic or inscriptive art on this continent from the 

 Red race, does not aspire above the simple art of pictography ; and 

 whenever an alphabet of any kind is veritably discovered, it must have 

 had a foreign origin. By granting belief to anything contravening this 

 state of art, we at first deceive ourselves, and then lend our influence to 

 diffuse error." 



Brantz Mayer says 4 "The ancient history of our tribes, it is well 

 known, is a matter of tradition alone, for they had no written language ; 

 or if they had. their story was not engraved on monuments, or trans- 

 mitted on imperishable materials." 



Col. Whittlesey says : II "There is no evidence that they (the mound 

 builders) had alphabetical characters, pictiure writing, or hieroglyphics, 

 though they must have had some mode of recording events." 



These quotations might be greatly extended, but enough has been 

 given to show the general drift of opinion among those writers, gener- 

 ally accepted as authorities. 



*History, Conditions and Prospects of the Indian Tribes, Vol. I, p. 123-. 



tLoc. cit., Vol. I, p. 125. 



JSmitbsonian Contributions, Vol. IX, p. 3. 



ITopogra^ical and HistoricarSketchesof Ohio, p. 10. 



