should be raised over such trifles: but the feeling of a systematist
toward such an intruder is just about what anyone's would be if a tramp
from the street should come in, sit at one's dinner table, and say he
belonged there. We know what hypnosis can do: let him insist with all
his might that he does belong there, and one begins to suspect that he
may be right; that he may have higher perceptions of what's right. The
prohibitionists had this worked out very skillfully.

So the row that was raised over the stone from Grave Creek--but time and
cumulativeness, and the very factor we make so much of--or the power of
massed data. There were other reports of inscribed stones, and then,
half a century later, some mounds--or caches, as we call them--were
opened by the Rev. Mr. Gass, near the city of Davenport. (_American
Antiquarian_, 15-73.) Several stone tablets were found. Upon one of
them, the letters "TFTOWNS" may easily be made out. In this instance we
hear nothing of fraudulency--time, cumulativeness, the power of massed
data. The attempt to assimilate this datum is:

That the tablet was probably of Mormon origin.

Why?

Because, at Mendon, Ill., was found a brass plate, upon which were
similar characters.

Why that?

Because that was found "near a house once occupied by a Mormon."

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 th