Part 49

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."