BOOK OF THE DAMNED 149 



It's been interesting to me to go over various long-established 

 periodicals, and note controversies between attempting positivists, 

 and then intermediatistic issues. Bold, bad intruders of theories; 

 ruffians with dishonorable intentions the alarms of Science; her 

 attempts to preserve that which is dearer than life itself submis- 

 sion then a fidelity like Mrs. Micawber's. So many of these ruf- 

 fians, or wandering comedians that were hated, or scorned, pitied, 

 embraced, conventionalized. There's not a notion in this book that 

 has a more frightful, or ridiculous, mien than had the notion of 

 human footprints in rocks, when that now respectabilized ruffian, 

 or clown, was first heard from. It seems bewildering to one whose 

 interests are not scientific that such rows should be raised over 

 such trifles: but the feeling of a systematist toward such an intruder 

 is just about what any one's would be if a tramp from the street 

 should come in, sit at one's dinner table, and say he belonged there. 

 We know what hypnosis can do: let him insist with all his might 

 that he does belong there, and one begins to suspect that he may be 

 right; that he may have higher perceptions of what's right. The 

 prohibitionists had this worked out very skillfully. 



So the row that was raised over the stone from Grave Creek 

 but time and cumulativeness, and the very factor we make so much 

 of or the power of massed data. There were other reports of in- 

 scribed stones, and then, half a century later, some mounds or 

 caches, as we call them were opened by the Rev. Mr. Gass, near 

 the city of Davenport. (American Antiquarian, 15-73.) Several 

 stone tablets were found. Upon one of them, the letters 

 "TFTOWNS" may easily be made out. In this instance we hear 

 nothing of fradulency time, cumulativeness, the power of massed 

 data. The attempt to assimilate this datum is: 



That the tablet was probably of Mormon origin. 



Why? 



Because, at Mendon, HI., was found a brass plate, upon which 

 were similar characters. 



Why that? 



Because that was found "near a house once occupied by a Mor- 

 mon." 



In a real existence, a real meteorologist, suspecting that cinders 

 had come from a fire engine would have asked a fireman. 



Tablets of Davenport there's not a record findable that it ever 

 occurred to any antiquarian to ask a Mormon. 



Other tablets were found. Upon one of them are two "F's" and 



