November 25, 1915] 



NATURE 



54: 



iluit the sculpture represents an elephant's head, and 

 that it was not modelled from the real creature. In 

 other words, the craftsman was copj'ing^ an earlier 

 model (presumably made by some immigrant from 

 Asia) without understanding the "points" of the 

 elephant. 



In the introduction to his "Mexican Archaeology" 

 (19 14) Mr. T. A. Joyce refers to Dr. A. P. Maudslay 

 and Dr. Seler as leading modern investigators who 

 have done so much to place the study of American 

 itiquities upon a thoroughly scientific footing." It 

 interesting to inquire what the voice of modern 

 ience has to say with reference to these Copan 

 ii phants. 

 In part ii. (text, p. 43) of his great monograph, to 

 w hich I have already referred, Dr. Maudslay says, in 

 his description of the figure which I have reproduced 

 here: — "The elephant-like appearance of these heads 

 IS been the subject of much discussion, but I fail to 

 I' any reason why the form may not have been taken 

 ;nim the tapir, an animal still commonly found in the 

 neighbourhood." But if this is so, it is surely a re- 

 markable coincidence that, when the sculptor set about 

 transforming tile tapir into so untapir-like a form, 

 he should have arrived at the precise profile of the 

 Indian elephant. Moreover, if the tapir was so fami- 

 liar to him, why did he mistake its eye for its nostril 

 and its meatus for its eye? Why also did he add the 

 embellishments exactly corresponding in distribution 

 to the elephant's pinna, tusk, and under surface of 

 the trunk, which become meaningless if the creature 

 is a tapir? The position of the turbaned man 

 on the head, as well as the instrument in his hand, 

 also become unintelligible if the head is that of a 

 tapir. 



Dr. Eduard Seler holds very different views, which 

 do more credit to his powers of imagination than to 

 his plausibility. For he regards the objects under 

 discussion as heads of tortoises! It is scarcely neces- 

 II y to follow the remarkable line of argument which 

 (1 him to this astounding conclusion {Archiv f. 

 Iilhnologie, 1910, pp. 50-53). 



Dr. Seler's view is all the more remarkable in view 



if the fact that in the same journal two years pre- 



i'lusly (Archiv /. Ethnologic, igo8, p. 716) Dr. W. 



!rmpell (after reviewing the literature concerning 



iliese elephant heads from the time of van Humboldt 



\ onwards) vigorously protested against the idea that 



\ they were intended to be anything else than elephants. 



'I He claimed that no one with any zoological knowledge 



I could have any doubt on the matter. But with an 



. amazing disregard for considerations of chronology he 



suggested that they represent the early Pleistocene 



Elehhas columhi I 



If these sculptures, definite as their features arc, 

 were the only representations of the elephant in pre- 

 Columbian America, one might perhaps be justified in 

 ; adopting an attitude of reserve as to their significance. 

 A But they do not stand alone. Another most remark- 

 able and unmistakable example appears as a head- 

 ess in a bas-relief at Palenque (see Bancroft's 

 \ative Races of the Pacific States of North .America," 

 1 iv., p. 305). .\nother is a highly conventionalised 

 presentation of an elephant's trunk, which appears 

 - a projecting ornament on the Casa del Gobenador 

 Uxmal (Bancroft, op. cit., p. 163). 

 Equally remarkable instances of the use of the 

 elephant as a design — in these cases the whole creature 

 —will be found in the so-called " Elephant Mound " of 

 Wisconsin, and the "Elephant Pipes" of Iowa (see 

 Henshaw, .Second Ann. Report of the Bureau of 

 Ethnology, for 1S80-1, pp. 152 and 155 respectively, 

 and McGuire, " Pipes and Smoking Customs of the 

 Vmerican Aborigines," 1898, p. 523). 



NO. 2404. VOL. q6l 



The use of the elephant design in these different ways 

 becomes more intelligible when it is recalled that in 

 India and eastern .\sia the elephant was frequently 

 represented on temples and dagobas, and si^eciai sanc- 

 tity became attached to it in religious architecture. 

 Some of the earliest sculptured representations of the 

 elephant in India, going back to the .\sokan period 

 (third century B.C.), are found to have the tusk and 

 the ventral surface of the trunk exposed in precisely 

 the same way as the Copan elephants (see, for example, 

 A. K. Cooniaraswamy's " Visvakarma," 1914, 

 plate 91). 



Thirty-six years ago Sir Edward Tylor proved that 

 the pre-Columbian Mexicans had acquired the Hindu 

 game called pachisi (Journ. Anthr. Inst., 1H79, p. 128). 

 Fifteen years later the same distinguished anthropolo- 

 gist directed attention (British Association Report, 

 1894, p. 774) to the fact that the Mexican scribes had 

 represented in their Aztec picture-writing (Vatican 

 Codex) a series of scenes taken from Japanese Bud- 

 dhist temple scrolls. If this is admitted — and the facts 

 are much too definite and precise to be denied — the 

 last reason disappears for refusing to admit the identi- 

 fication of the Copan heads as elephants. For if it 

 has been possible for complicated games and a series 

 of strange beliefs (and elaborate pictorial illustrations 

 of them) to make their way to the other side of the 

 Pacific, the much simpler design of an elephant's 

 head could also have been transferred from India or 

 the Far East to America. G. Elliot Smith. 



The University of Manchester, November 10. 



Commercial Firms and Scientific Inventors. 



The daily Press is now beginning to take up the 

 question of encouraging British inventors with the 

 object of capturing German trade after the war. 



May I direct attention to what I regard as a serious 

 deterrent to any scientific man who is capable of pro- 

 ducing inventions of practical value. 



As many readers of Nature are aware, after more 

 than ten years' practical experience in the use of piano- 

 players, I patented an expression device, the use of 

 which I found to be absolutely necessary in order to 

 get the satisfaction I required from my music. It has 

 now been put on the market by the Motomusic Com- 

 pany, of 42 Eyre Place, Edinburgh, but both before 

 and' after this I found that it v;as quite impossible 

 to bring it properly before the notice of some of the 

 leading London firms. Had the makers merely raised 

 difficulties of a purely practical kind no objection could 

 have been taken to their attitude, but instead of this 

 their representatives persisted in attempting to talk 

 me down with arguments to the effect that it was 

 theoretically impossible that my invention could pro- 

 duce the results (hat I claimed for it. It soon became 

 evident that these so-called practical men based their 

 objections on an entire misunderstanding of the prin- 

 ciples of elementary dynamics and physics, and it \yas 

 quite impossible to make them understand things which 

 I could easily have explained to one of my first year 

 students. 



It should surely be evident to the most practical 

 business man that a fellow of the Royal Society, who 

 has gained additional distinctions in mathematics and 

 physics, would not waste time and money in patenting 

 an' invention unless he were perfectly satisfied as to 

 its unique efficiency on theoretical grounds, particu- 

 larly if the principles underlying it belonged to the 

 branch of science in which he specialised. I have tried 

 most makes of piano-player, hut at the present time 

 there is not one which 1 would care to play on unless 

 my patented invention were incorporated in it. 



