300 HISTORICAL FOOTPRINTS IN AMERICA. 



the wing of the veritable Rafn of Copenhagen. " Bishop Oelrisher ' 

 who bequeathed the 1400 reichsthalers needed for prosecuting the in- 

 teresting inquiry escaped challenge. But an elderly disputant, " one 

 of the oldest inhabitants," indignantly affirmed the falsity of Professor 

 Scrobein's report ; that he had been grossly deceived ; that he had 

 no hand in the report attributed to him ; and only neglected to 

 inquire if anybody at Copenhagen or elsewhere had ever before 

 heard of this mythic Professor, whose report, as the venerable con- 

 troversialist maintains, " was a gross and palpable imposition on the 

 [Copenhagen] committee, the Royal Society and the world." The 

 "Antiquarian" of Brown University gravely responded with still 

 more startling extracts from the Professor's report; which docu- 

 ment, says he, " I would willingly submit, but its extreme length 

 forbids!"* And so the old mill grew ever more famous. More 

 than one poet added his contribution to its renown ; and in the " Poem 

 of Aquidneck," the muse thus questions and solves its controverted 

 points of history : — 



How long hath Time held on his mighty march 



Since first arose thy time-defying arch ? 



Did thus th' astonished Indian gaze on thee, 



A mystery staring at a mystery ? 



A son of Canaan shall we rather say, 



Viewing the work of brethren pass'd away ? 



Was it Phoenician, Norman, Saxon toil 



That sunk thy rock-based pillars in the soil ? 



How looked the bay, the forest, and the hill. 



When first the sun beheld thy walls, old mill ? 



Alas ! the Antiquarian's dream is o'er. 



Thou art an old stone windmill, — nothing more ! 



The Norse builders and ante-Columbian date of the Newpon 

 Tower, which found in earlier days as zealous champions as the 

 Phoenician origin long ascribed to the Round Towers of Ireland, — 

 after being thus subjected to the sly assaults of the satirist, as well as 

 the severe questioning of grave critical censors, — have been so univer- 

 sally abandoned, that some may perhaps deem it scant courtesy to 

 recall the forsworn creed. In reality, however, this chapter in the 

 history of American archaeological research is replete with interest 

 and value. But for the investigations into the significance of the 



* Controversy touching the Old Stone Mill in the Town of Newport, Rhode Island, 

 I^Tewport, 18S1, p. 16. 



