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 two "8's."
Also a large tablet, twelve inches by eight to ten inches "with Roman
numerals and Arabic." It is said that the figure "8" occurs three times,
and the figure or letter "O" seven times. "With these familiar
characters are others that resemble ancient alphabets, either
Phoenecian or Hebrew."
It may be that the discovery of Australia, for instance, will turn out
to be less important than the discovery and the meaning of these
tablets--
But where will you read of them in anything subsequently published; what
antiquarian has ever since tried to understand them, and their presence,
and indications of antiquity, in a land that we're told was inhabited
only by unlettered savages?
These things that are exhumed only to be buried in some other way.
Another tablet was found, at Davenport, by Mr. Charles Harrison,
president of the American Antiquarian Society. "... 8 and other
hieroglyphics are upon this tablet." This time, also, fraud is not
mentioned. My own notion is that it is very unsportsmanlike ever to
mention fraud. Accept anything. Then explain it your way. Anything that
assimilates with one explanation, must have assimilable relations, to
some degree, with all other explanations, if all explanations are
somewhere continuous. Mormons are lugged in again, but the attempt is
faint and helpless--"because general circumstances make it difficult to
explain the presence of these tablets."
Altogether our phantom resistance is mere attribution to the Mormons,
without the slightest attempt to find base for the attribution. We think
of messages that were showered upon this earth, and of messages that
were cached in mounds upon this earth. The similarity to the Franklin
situation is striking. Conceivably centuries from now, objects dropped
from relief-expedition-balloons may be found in the Arctic, and
conceivably there are still undiscovered caches left by Franklin, in the
hope that relief expeditions would find them. It would be as incongruous
to attribute these things to the Eskimos as to attribute tablets and
lettered stones to the aborigines of America. Some time I shall take up
an expression that the queer-shaped mounds upon this earth were built by
explorers from Somewhere, unable to get back, designed to attract
attention from some other world, and that a vast sword-shaped mound has
been discovered upon the moon--Just now we think of lettered things and
their two possible significances.
A bizarre little lost soul, rescued from one of the morgues of the
_American Journal of Science_:
An account, sent by a correspondent, to Prof. Silliman, of something
that was found in a block of marble, taken November, 1829, from a
quarry, near Philadelphia (_Am. J. Sci._, 1-19-361). The block was cut
into slabs. By this process, it is said, was exposed an indentation in
the stone, about one and a half inches by five-eighths of an inch. A
geometric indentation: in it were two definite-looking raised letters,
like "I U": only difference is that the corners of the "U" are not
rounded, but are right angles. We are told that this block of stone came
from a depth of seventy or eighty feet--or that, if acceptable, this
lettering was done long, long ago. To some persons, not sated with the
commonness of the incredible that has to be accepted, it may seem
grotesque to think that an indentation in sand could have tons of other
sand piled upon it and hardening into stone, without being pressed
out--but the famous Nicaraguan footprints were found in a quarry under
eleven strata of solid rock. There was no discussion of this datum. We
only take it out for an airing.
As to lettered stones that may once upon a time have been showered upon
Europe, if we cannot accept that the stones were inscribed by indigenous
inhabitants of Europe, many have been found in caves--whence they were
carried as curiosities by prehistoric men, or as ornaments, I suppose.
About the size and shape of the Grave Creek stone, or disk: "flat and
oval and about two inches wide." (Sollas.) Characters painted upon them:
found first by M. Piette, in the cave of Mas d'Azil, Ariege. According
to Sollas, they are marked in various directions with red and black
lines. "But on not a few of them, more complex characters occur, which
in a few instances simulate some of the capital letters of the Roman
alphabet." In one instance the letters "F E I" accompanied by no other
markings to modify them, are as plain as they could be. According to
Sollas (_Ancient Hunters_, p. 95) M. Cartailhac has confirmed the
observations of Piette, and M. Boule has found additional examples.
"They offer one of the darkest problems of prehistoric times." (Sollas.)
As to caches in general, I should say that they are made with two
purposes: to proclaim and to conceal; or that caches documents are
hidden, or covered over, in conspicuous structures; at least, so are
designed the cairns in the Arctic.
_Trans. N.Y. Acad. of Sciences_, 11-27:
That Mr. J.H. Hooper, Bradley Co., Tenn., having come upon a curious
stone, in some woods upon his farm, investigated. He dug. He unearthed a
long wall. Upon this wall were inscribed many alphabetic characters.
"872 characters have been examined, many of them duplicates, and a few
imitations of animal forms, the moon, and other objects. Accidental
imitations of oriental alphabets are numerous."
The part that seems significant:
That these letters had been hidden under a layer of cement.
And still, in our own heterogeneity, or unwillingness, or inability, to
concentrate upon single concepts, we shall--or we sha'n't--accept that,
though there may have been a Lost Colony or Lost Expedition from
Somewhere, upon this earth, and extra-mundane visitors who could never
get back, there have been other extra-mundane visitors, who have gone
away again--altogether quite in analogy with the Franklin Expedition and
Peary's flittings in the Arctic--