er "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 n