Part 52

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--

And a wreck that occurred to one group of them--

And the loot that was lost overboard--

The Chinese seals of Ireland.

Not the things with the big, wistful eyes that lie on ice, and that are taught to balance objects on their noses--but inscribed stamps, with which to make impressions.

Proc. Roy. Irish Acad., 1-381:

A paper was read by Mr. J. Huband Smith, descriptive of about a dozen Chinese seals that had been found in Ireland. They are all alike: each a cube with an animal seated upon it. "It is said that the inscriptions upon them are of a very ancient class of Chinese characters."

The three points that have made a leper and an outcast of this datum--but only in the sense of disregard, because nowhere that I know of is it questioned:

Agreement among archaeologists that there were no relations, in the remote past, between China and Ireland:

That no other objects, from ancient China--virtually, I suppose--have ever been found in Ireland:

The great distances at which these seals have been found apart.

After Mr. Smith's investigations--if he did investigate, or do more than record--many more Chinese seals were found in Ireland, and, with one exception, only in Ireland. In 1852, about 60 had been found. Of all archaeologic finds in Ireland, "none is enveloped in greater mystery." (Chambers' Journal, 16-364.) According to the writer in Chambers' Journal, one of these seals was found in a curiosity shop in London. When questioned, the shopkeeper said that it had come from Ireland.

In this instance, if you don't take instinctively to our expression, there is no orthodox explanation for your preference. It is the astonishing scattering of them, over field and forest, that has hushed the explainers. In the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 10-171, Dr. Frazer says that they "appear to have been sown broadcast over the country in some strange way that I cannot offer solution of."

The struggle for expression of a notion that did not belong to Dr. Frazer's era:

"The invariable story of their find is what we might expect if they had been accidentally dropped...."

Three were found in Tipperary; six in Cork; three in Down; four in Waterford; all the rest--one or two to a county.

But one of these Chinese seals was found in the bed of the River Boyne, near Clonard, Meath, when workmen were raising gravel.

That one, at least, had been dropped there.

Astronomy.

And a watchman looking at half a dozen lanterns, where a street's been torn up.

There are gas lights and kerosene lamps and electric lights in the neighborhood: matches flaring, fires in stoves, bonfires, house afire somewhere; lights of automobiles, illuminated signs--

The watchman and his one little system.

Ethics.