The St. Charles herald. [volume] (Hahnville, La.) 1873-1993, 1885-09-12
THE LENAPE STONE.


A Rock Representing a Fight Between
the Hairy Mammoth and American In
dams.
1.-THE Lenape stone'' is fiat stone
about four inches long and an inch ana
half wide, with rude picture
scratched on the surface representing
Indians fighting hairy mammoth. 1t
is broken into two parts, and the story
goes that the fragments were found, at
an interval of nine years, by boy
working in field in Bucks County,
PENNSYLVANIA, four miles and half
east of Doylestown. The piece first
discovered was plowed up; the second
came to light when the same youth
was husking corn in the same field.
The carving is rudely done, and with a
few strokes. In front of the mammoth
as it strides forward are drawn two
fighting Indians with bows and arrows
Wigwams and pine trees appear in the
distance, while in the sky the sttn,
moon, stars, and a constellation
are all on duty. One Indian has been
trampled under foot by the monster.
and another, who is reeumbent seems
not vet to have taken alarm. The
picture could be copied in two or three
minutes by rapid pen-strokes. The
stone is slate, and the reverse side con-
tains turtles, hawks, and other objects.
Experts who have examined the
carving pronounce it fraud, but Mr..
H. G. Mercer, who knows the finder
l,a A,1o rhn Ctnnn
thinks otherwise, and has written
book on the subject. The Delaware
tribe lived in that region of Pennsyl-
vania for centuries, and curious stones
marked by them have been unearthed
in Bucks County.
''The Lenape stone'' was submitted
to DIR. d. G. Brinton, the well-known
archaologst and ethnologist of Phila-
delphia. He inspected it carefully, and
says it is modern, basing. his opinion on
both its design and execution. The
aborgines of the United States did not
shade or group their pictures. They
did not represent lightning shooting in
various d rect ons from a central point,
nor treat the sun as face.
THE lines on the Lenape stone are
obviously cut with a metal instrument
making clear missions, deepest in the
center and tapering to pc nts-quite
different from the scratch of flint
point. Shrewder fabricators than the
unknown author of this one make use
of flint points. Some of the western
tablets have been so inscribed. They
may thus conceal their tools, but there
are other resources for the areheolo-
q SITS. The surface of all stones under
goes q certain chemical change on
exposure to the air, which is
called by the French term pa
tine. In many varieties, as fl nts,
Jasper, and hard shales, this affords a
decisive means of discriminating a
modern from an ancient inscription or
arrowhead 1t requires the use of the
microscope and some practice, but
with these most of such impostures can
be detected. This does not exhaust the
resources at the command of the an
tiquary to circumvent those who would
practice on his love for rel 'cs of the
past Mr. H. Carvill Lewis, profess
ser of mineralogy, Academy of Natural
Sciences, Philadelphia, says the tablet
is genuine, but the drawing is forged
from the p cture of a mammoth on a
piece of ivory found in the cave of La
Madeleine, Per CORD, France. DIR, F.
w. Putnam, curator of the Peabody
Museum of Archaeology, Cambridge,
Mass, is somewhat in doubt, but rath
err suspects the handsof white man
in the drawing DIR. M. E. Wads-
worth, of Cambridge, Mass, believes
the drawing was made with some steel
tool like dull awl. Mr.. j. P. Id
dings, of the United States coast sur
vey, notes that the lines of the draw
: ing appear to have been arranged with
reference to the feature of the stone.
The author of this book, however, de-
clares his faith in its genuineness. The
indications are that gorget slate stones
with Indian scratches upon them have
been found on the Hansen farm, but
that this representation of the nam
moth is forgery Cincinnati Com
nerciaL Gazette.