One of the damnedest of our data:
In the _Scientific American_, Sept. 10, 1910, Charles F. Holder writes:
"Many years ago, a strange stone resembling a meteorite, fell into the
Valley of the Yaqui, Mexico, and the sensational story went from one end
to the other of the country that a stone bearing human inscriptions had
descended to the earth."
The bewildering observation here is Mr. Holder's assertion that this
stone did fall. It seems to me that he must mean that it fell by
dislodgment from a mountainside into a valley--but we shall see that it
was such a marked stone that very unlikely would it have been unknown to
dwellers in a valley, if it had been reposing upon a mountainside above
them. It may have been carelessness: intent may have been to say that a
sensational story of a strange stone said to have fallen, etc.
This stone was reported by Major Frederick Burnham, of the British Army.
Later Major Burnham revisited it, and Mr. Holder accompanied him, their
purpose to decipher the inscriptions upon it, if possible.
"This stone was a brown, igneous rock, its longest axis about eight
feet, and on the eastern face, which had an angle of about forty-five
degrees, was the deep-cut inscription."
Mr. Holder says that he recognized familiar Mayan symbols in the
inscription. His method was the usual method by which anything can be
"identified" as anything else: that is to pick out whatever is agreeable
and disregard the rest. He says that he has demonstrated that most of
the symbols are Mayan. One of our intermediatist pseudo-principles is
that any way of demonstrating anything is just as good a way of
demonstrating anything else. By Mr. Holder's method we could demonstrate
that we're Mayan--if that should be a source of pride to us. One of the
characters upon this stone is a circle within a circle--similar
character found by Mr. Holder is a Mayan manuscript. There are two 6's.
6's can be found in Mayan manuscripts. A double scroll. There are dots
and there are dashes. Well, then, we, in turn, disregard the circle
within a circle and the double scroll and emphasize that 6's occur in
this book, and that dots are plentiful, and would be more plentiful if
it were customary to use the small "i" for the first personal
pronoun--that when it comes to dashes--that's demonstrated: we're Mayan.
I suppose the tendency is to feel that we're sneering at some valuable
archaeologic work, and that Mr. Holder did make a veritable
identification.
He writes:
"I submitted the photographs to the Field Museum and the Smithsonian and
one or two others, and, to my surprise, the reply was that they could
make nothing out of it."
Our indefinite acceptance, by preponderance of three or four groups of
museum-experts against one person, is that a stone bearing inscriptions
unassimilable with any known language upon this earth, is said to have
fallen from the sky. Another poor wretch of an outcast belonging here is
noted in the _Scientific American_, 48-261: that, of an object, or a
meteorite, that fell Feb. 16, 1883, near Brescia, Italy, a false report
was circulated that one of the fragments bore the impress of a hand.
That's all that is findable by me upon this mere gasp of a thing.
Intermediatistically, my acceptance is that, though in the course of
human history, there have been some notable approximations, there never
has been a real liar: that he could not survive in intermediateness,
where everything merges away or has its pseudo-base in something
else--would be instantly translated to the Negative Absolute. So my
acceptance is that, though curtly dismissed, there was something to base
upon in this report; that there were unusual markings upon this object.
Of course that is not to jump to the conclusion that they were cuneiform
characters that looked like finger-prints.
Altogether, I think that in some of our past expressions, we must have
been very efficient, if the experience of Mr. Symons be typical, so
indefinite are we becoming here. Just here we are interested in many
things that have been found, especially in the United States, which
speak of a civilization, or of many civilizations not indigenous to
this earth. One trouble is in trying to decide whether they fell here
from the sky, or were left behind by visitors from other worlds. We have
a notion that there have been disasters aloft, and that coins have
dropped here: that inhabitants of this earth found them or saw them
fall, and then made coins imitatively: it may be that coins were
showered here by something of a tutelary nature that undertook to
advance us from the stage of barter to the use of a medium. If coins
should be identified as Roman coins, we've had so much experience with
"identifications" that we know a phantom when we see one--but, even so,
how could Roman coins have got to North America--far in the interior of
North America--or buried under the accumulation of centuries of
soil--unless they did drop from--wherever the first Romans came from?
Ignatius Donnelly, in _Atlantis_, gives a list of objects that have been
found in mounds that are supposed to antedate all European influence in
America: lathe-made articles, such as traders--from somewhere--would
supply to savages--marks of the lathe said to be unmistakable. Said to
be: of course we can't accept that anything is unmistakable. In the
_Rept. Smithson. Inst._, 1881-619, there is an account, by Charles C.
Jones, of two silver crosses that were found in Georgia. They are
skillfully made, highly ornamented crosses, but are not conventional
crucifixes: all arms of equal length. Mr. Jones is a good
positivist--that De Sota had halted at the "precise" spot where these
crosses were found. But the spirit of negativeness that lurks in all
things said to be "precise" shows itself in that upon one of these
crosses is an inscription that has no meaning in Spanish or any other
known, terrestrial language:
"IYNKICIDU," according to Mr. Jones. He thinks that this is a name, and
that there is an aboriginal ring to it, though I should say, myself,
that he was thinking of the far-distant Incas: that the Spanish donor
cut on the cross the name of an Indian to whom it was presented. But we
look at the inscription ourselves and see that the letters said to be
"C" and "D" are turned the wrong way, and that the letter said to be "K"
is not only turned the wrong way, but is upside down.
It is difficult to accept that the remarkable, the very extensive,
copper mines in the region of Lake Superior were ever the works of
American aborigines. Despite the astonishing extent of these mines,
nothing has ever been found to indicate that the region was ever
inhabited by permanent dwellers-- "... not a vestige of a dwelling, a
skeleton, or a bone has been found." The Indians have no traditions
relating to the mines. (_Amer. Antiquarian_, 25-258.) I think that we've
had visitors: that they have come here for copper, for instance. As to
other relics of them--but we now come upon frequency of a merger that
has not so often appeared before:
Fraudulency.
Hair called real hair--then there are wigs. Teeth called real
teeth--then there are false teeth. Official money--counterfeit money.
It's the bane of psychic research. If there be psychic phenomena, there
must be fraudulent psychic phenomena. So desperate is the situation here
that Carrington argues that, even if Palladino be caught cheating, that
is not to say that all her phenomena are fraudulent. My own version is:
that nothing indicates anything, in a positive sense, because, in a
positive sense, there is nothing to be indicated. Everything that is
called true must merge away indistinguishably into something called
false. Both are expressions of the same underlying quasiness, and are
continuous. Fraudulent antiquarian relics are very common, but they are
not more common than are fraudulent paintings.
W.S. Forest, _Historical Sketches of Norfolk, Virginia_:
That, in September, 1833, when some workmen, near Norfolk, were boring
for water, a coin was drawn up from a depth of about 30 feet. It was
about the size of an English shilling, but oval--an oval disk, if not a
coin. The figures upon it were distinct, and represented "a warrior or
hunter and other characters, apparently of Roman origin."
The means of exclusion would probably be--men digging a hole--no one
else looking: one of them drops a coin into the hole--as to where he got
a strange coin, remarkable in shape even--that's disregarded. Up comes
the coin--expressions of astonishment from the evil one who had dropped
it.
However, the antiquarians have missed this coin. I can find no other
mention of it.
Another coin. Also a little study in the genesis of a prophet.
In the _American Antiquarian_, 16-313, is copied a story by a
correspondent to the _Detroit News_, of a copper coin about the size of
a two-cent piece, said to have been found in a Michigan mound. The
Editor says merely that he does not endorse the find. Upon this slender
basis, he buds out, in the next number of the _Antiquarian_:
"The coin turns out, as we predicted, to be a fraud."
You can imagine the scorn of Elijah, or any of the old more nearly real
prophets.
Or all things are tried by the only kind of jurisprudence we have in
quasi-existence:
Presumed to be innocent until convicted--but they're guilty.
The Editor's reasoning is as phantom-like as my own, or St. Paul's, or
Darwin's. The coin is condemned because it came from the same region
from which, a few years before, had come pottery that had been called
fraudulent. The pottery had been condemned because it was condemnable.
_Scientific American_, June 17, 1882:
That a farmer, in Cass Co., Ill., had picked up, on his farm, a bronze
coin, which was sent to Prof. F.F. Hilder, of St. Louis, who identified
it as a coin of Antiochus IV. Inscription said to be in ancient Greek
characters: translated as "King Antiochus Epiphanes (Illustrious) the
Victorius." Sounds quite definite and convincing--but we have some more
translations coming.
In the _American Pioneer_, 2-169, are shown two faces of a copper coin,
with characters very much like those upon the Grave Creek stone--which,
with translations, we'll take up soon. This coin is said to have been
found in Connecticut, in 1843.
_Records of the Past_, 12-182:
That, early in 1913, a coin, said to be a Roman coin, was reported as
discovered in an Illinois mound. It was sent to Dr. Emerson, of the Art
Institute, of Chicago. His opinion was that the coin is "of the rare
mintage of Domitius Domitianus, Emperor in Egypt." As to its discovery
in an Illinois mound, Dr. Emerson disclaims responsibility. But what
strikes me here is that a joker should not have been satisfied with an
ordinary Roman coin. Where did he get a rare coin, and why was it not
missed from some collection? I have looked over numismatic journals
enough to accept that the whereabouts of every rare coin in anyone's
possession is known to coin-collectors. Seems to me nothing left but to
call this another "identification."
_Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc._, 12-224:
That, in July, 1871, a letter was received from Mr. Jacob W. Moffit, of
Chillicothe, Ill., enclosing a photograph of a coin, which he said had
been brought up, by him, while boring, from a depth of 120 feet.
Of course, by conventional scientific standards, such depth has some
extraordinary meaning. Palaeontologists, geologists, and archaeologists
consider themselves reasonable in arguing ancient origin of the
far-buried. We only accept: depth is a pseudo-standard with us; one
earthquake could bury a coin of recent mintage 120 feet below the
surface.
According to a writer in the _Proceedings_, the coin is uniform in
thickness, and had never been hammered out by savages--"there are other
tokens of the machine shop."
But, according to Prof. Leslie, it is an astrologic amulet. "There are
upon it the signs of Pisces and Leo."
Or, with due disregard, you can find signs of your great-grand-mother,
or of the Crusades, or of the Mayans, upon anything that ever came from
Chillicothe or from a five and ten cent store. Anything that looks like
a cat and a goldfish looks like Leo and Pisces: but, by due suppressions
and distortions there's nothing that can't be made to look like a cat
and a goldfish. I fear me we're turning a little irritable here. To be
damned by slumbering giants and interesting little harlots and clowns
who rank high in their profession is at least supportable to our vanity;
but, we find that the anthropologists are of the slums of the divine, or
of an archaic kindergarten of intellectuality, and it is very
unflattering to find a mess of moldy infants sitting in judgment upon
us.
Prof. Leslie then finds, as arbitrarily as one might find that some
joker put the Brooklyn Bridge where it is, that "the piece was placed
there as a practical joke, though not by its present owner; and is a
modern fabrication, perhaps of the sixteenth century, possibly
Hispano-American or French-American origin."
It's sheer, brutal attempt to assimilate a thing that may or may not
have fallen from the sky, with phenomena admitted by the anthropologic
system: or with the early French or Spanish explorers of Illinois.
Though it is ridiculous in a positive sense to give reasons, it is more
acceptable to attempt reasons more nearly real than opposing reasons. Of
course, in his favor, we note that Prof. Leslie qualifies his notions.
But his disregards are that there is nothing either French or Spanish
about this coin. A legend upon it is said to be "somewhere between
Arabic and Phoenician, without being either." Prof. Winchell (_Sparks
from a Geologist's Hammer_, p. 170) says of the crude designs upon this
coin, which was in his possession--scrawls of an animal and of a
warrior, or of a cat and a goldfish, whichever be convenient--that they
had been neither stamped nor engraved, but "looked as if etched with an
acid." That is a method unknown in numismatics of this earth. As to the
crudity of design upon this coin, and something else--that, though the
"warrior" may be, by due disregards, either a cat or a goldfish, we have
to note that his headdress is typical of the American Indian--could be
explained, of course, but for fear that we might be instantly translated
to the Positive Absolute, which may not be absolutely desirable, we
prefer to have some flaws or negativeness in our own expressions.
Data of more than the thrice-accursed:
Tablets of stone, with the ten commandments engraved upon them, in
Hebrew, said to have been found in mounds in the United States:
Masonic emblems said to have been found in mounds in the United States.
We're upon the borderline of our acceptances, and we're amorphous in the
uncertainties and mergings of our outline. Conventionally, or, with no
real reason for so doing, we exclude these things, and then, as grossly
and arbitrarily and irrationally--though our attempt is always to
approximate away from these negative states--as ever a Kepler, Newton,
or Darwin made his selections, without which he could not have seemed
to be, at all, because every one of them is now seen to be an illusion,
we accept that other lettered things have been found in mounds in the
United States. Of course we do what we can to make the selection seem
not gross and arbitrary and irrational. Then, if we accept that
inscribed things of ancient origin have been found in the United States;
that cannot be attributed to any race indigenous to the western
hemisphere; that are not in any language ever heard of in the eastern
hemisphere--there's nothing to it but to turn non-Euclidian and try to
conceive of a third "hemisphere," or to accept that there has been
intercourse between the western hemisphere and some other world.
But there is a peculiarity to these inscribed objects. They remind me of
the records left, by Sir John Franklin, in the Arctic; but, also, of
attempts made by relief expeditions to communicate with the Franklin
expedition. The lost explorers cached their records--or concealed them
conspicuously in mounds. The relief expeditions sent up balloons, from
which messages were dropped broadcast. Our data are of things that have
been cached, and of things that seem to have been dropped--
Or a Lost Expedition from--Somewhere.
Explorers from somewhere, and their inability to return--then, a long,
sentimental, persistent attempt, in the spirit of our own Arctic
relief-expeditions--at least to establish communication--
What if it may have succeeded?
We think of India--the millions of natives who are ruled by a small band
of esoterics--only because they receive support and direction
from--somewhere else--or from England.
In 1838, Mr. A.B. Tomlinson, owner of the great mound at Grave Creek,
West Virginia, excavated the mound. He said that, in the presence of
witnesses, he had found a small, flat, oval stone--or disk--upon which
were engraved alphabetic characters.
Col. Whittelsey, an expert in these matters, says that the stone is now
"universally regarded by archaeologists as a fraud": that, in his
opinion, Mr. Tomlinson had been imposed upon.
Avebury, _Prehistoric Times_, p. 271:
"I mention it because it has been the subject of much discussion, but
it is now generally admitted to be a fraud. It is inscribed with Hebrew
characters, but the forger has copied the modern instead of the ancient
form of the letters."
As I have said, we're as irritable here, under the oppressions of the
anthropologists as ever were slaves in the south toward superiorities
from "poor white trash." When we finally reverse our relative positions
we shall give lowest place to the anthropologists. A Dr. Gray does at
least look at a fish before he conceives of a miraculous origin for it.
We shall have to submerge Lord Avebury far below him--if we accept that
the stone from Grave Creek is generally regarded as a fraud by eminent
authorities who did not know it from some other object--or, in general,
that so decided an opinion must be the product of either deliberate
disregard or ignorance or fatigue. The stone belongs to a class of
phenomena that is repulsive to the System. It will not assimilate with
the System. Let such an object be heard of by such a systematist as
Avebury, and the mere mention of it is as nearly certainly the stimulus
to a conventional reaction as is a charged body to an electroscope or a
glass of beer to a prohibitionist. It is of the ideals of Science to
know one object from another before expressing an opinion upon a thing,
but that is not the spirit of universal mechanics:
A thing. It is attractive or repulsive. Its conventional reaction
follows.
Because it is not the stone from Grave Creek that is in Hebrew
characters, either ancient or modern: it is a stone from Newark, Ohio,
of which the story is told that a forger made this mistake of using
modern instead of ancient Hebrew characters. We shall see that the
inscription upon the Grave Creek stone is not in Hebrew.
Or all things are presumed to be innocent, but are supposed to be
guilty--unless they assimilate.
Col. Whittelsey (_Western Reserve Historical Tracts, No. 33_) says that
the Grave Creek stone was considered a fraud by Wilson, Squires, and
Davis. Then he comes to the Congress of Archaeologists at Nancy, France,
1875. It is hard for Col. Whittelsey to admit that, at this meeting,
which sounds important, the stone was endorsed. He reminds us of Mr.
Symons, and "the man" who "considered" that he saw something. Col.
Whittelsey's somewhat tortuous expression is that the finder of the
stone "so imposed his views" upon the congress that it pronounced the
stone genuine.
Also the stone was examined by Schoolcraft. He gave his opinion for
genuineness.
Or there's only one process, and "see-saw" is one of its aspects. Three
or four fat experts on the side against us. We find four or five plump
ones on our side. Or all that we call logic and reasoning ends up as
sheer preponderance of avoirdupois.
Then several philologists came out in favor of genuineness. Some of them
translated the inscription. Of course, as we have said, it is our
method--or the method of orthodoxy--way in which all conclusions are
reached--to have some awfully eminent, or preponderantly plump,
authorities with us whenever we can--in this case, however, we feel just
a little apprehensive in being caught in such excellently obese, but
somewhat negativized, company:
Translation by M. Jombard:
"Thy orders are laws: thou shinest in impetuous elan and rapid chamois."