American Antiquities: Corroborative of the Book of Mormon (23 April 1859)

(From an American paper.)

"A copper kettle has been found 17 feet below the surface, near Altona, Illinois, imbedded in a rein of coal. It was found on Buffalo Rock, on the Illinois river. All ask, How could it come into a solid bed of coal?”

(From the New York Despatch.)

“While some hands were digging out a cellar in Botetourt County, Va., they came upon a quantity of coin, consisting of some eight pieces, in an iron box about 14 inches square. The coin was larger than a dollar, and the inscription in a language wholly unknown to any person in the vicinity. Upon digging down some 16 inches lower, they came to a quantity of iron implements of singular and heretofore unseen shape. Several scientific gentlemen have examined into the matter, and had come to the conclusion that the coins, together with the other curiosities, must have been placed there at an extremely early date, and before the settlement of the country.”

(From Captain Ewell’s Report of the Gila Exploring Expedition.)

“I reached the Gila in the valley, the lower end of which was out of sight, but evidently from 25 to 30 miles long, and from three to five wide. The soil is rich and lies well for irrigation. There was enough arable land passed through to support 20,000 people, surrounded by fine prairie for grazing. Broken pottery was everywhere so plentiful that it amounts to a puzzle. A great many ruins, some of large villages or pueblos, are to be seen, and at points the marks of what must once have been a noble acequia, cut through such hard, strong banks, that it is difficult to believe no iron was used in the construction. The Pimo Indians say these were the homes of their ancestors.”

(From Captain Bonneville’s Report of the Gila Exploring Expedition.)

“Every one is in admiration of this beautiful region. No doubt this country has been inhabited; for we find evidences of a population more industrious, more civilized, and more docile than the rascally Apaches who now infest it. … This valley, like every other capable of being cultivated,  gives evidence of a former people, agricultural in their pursuits, and no doubt far more civilized than the present race who desolate it.”

(Extracts from the writings of Sir K. Phillips.)

“Humboldt found, in possession of the Indians on the Amazons, engraved green stones, exactly like the Ethiopian and Babylonian or Sabean signets described by Mr. Landseer. They are real Jade, perforated, and loaded with inscriptions and figures. They open new fields for investigation. Did the Amazons pass from Africa to South America? Rude figures, resembling the sun and moon and different animals, are found also sculptured in granitic and other hard rocks. … Humboldt states that fragments of ancient painted pottery are found in the woods of both Americas, far from the residence of man, exhibiting crocodiles, monkeys, and some large quadrupeds. … The ancient fortifications found in the American forests are judged, by the trees, to be much above 1,000 years old. … The stone mountain in Carolina is a vast wall of stones, built by an extinct people. … In the plains of Varinas, South America, are found tumuli and a causeway, 13 miles long and 15 feet high, more ancient than the Indians. On the high rocks of Encaramada are sculptured and painted rocks; and also others on a large rock in the plains, which the Indians say were made by their fathers when the great waters lifted their boats to those levels. … The ruins of an ancient city, called Palangal, of great extent and high finish, have been discovered by Goo Galinda, in a thick forest near Poten, in the vicinity of the Missouri; and the neighbouring country is also filled with architectural works. These and other remains in North America and the city lately discovered in Guatemala seem to prove revolutions of which we have no present suspicion.

(From the National Intelligencer.)

“By the politeness of Colonel Lee, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, we have been shown a relic of great rarity and interest, left for a few days at the Bureau. It was brought from the Pottawattamie Reservation, on the Kansas River, by Dr. Lykins, who has been residing there nearly twenty years out of thirty he has spent on the frontier. It consists of four small rolls or strips of parchment, closely packed in the small compartments of a little box or locket of about an inch cubical content. On these parchments are written, in a style of unsurpassed excellence, and far more beautiful than print, portions of the Pentateuch, to be worn as frontlets, and intended as stimulants to the memory and moral sense. Dr. Lykins obtained it from Pategwe, a Pottawattamie, who got it from his grandmother, a very old woman. It has been in this particular family about 50 years. … The wonder is how this singular article came into their possession. When asked how long they can trace back its history, they reply, they cannot tell the time when they had it not. The question occurs here— Does not this circumstance give some colour to the idea long and extensively entertained, that the Indians of our continent are more or less Jewish in their origin?"

(Extract from the Rev. Ethan Smith's “View of the Hebrews.")

“Joseph Merrick, Esq., a highly respectable character in Pittsfield, Mass., gave the following account:—That, in 1815, he was levelling some ground under and near an old wood-shed standing on a place of his situated on Indian Hill. He ploughed and conveyed away old chips and earth to some depth. After the work was done, walking over the place, he discovered, near where the earth had been dug the deepest, a black strap, as it appeared, about six inches in length, and one-and-a-half in breadth, and about the thickness of a leather trace to a harness. He perceived it had at each end a loop of some hard substance, probably for the purpose of carrying it. He conveyed it to his house and threw it into an old tool box. He afterwards found it thrown out at the door, and again conveyed it to the box. After some time, he thought he would examine it, but, in attempting to cut It, found it as hard as bone. He succeeded, however, in getting it open, and found it Was formed of two pieces of thick raw hide, sewed and made water-tight with the sinews of some animal, and gummed over; and in the fold was contained four folded pieces of parchment. They were of a dark yellow hue, and contained some kind of writing. The neighbours, coming in to see the strange discovery, tore one of the pieces to atoms, in the true Hun and Vandal style. The other three pieces Mr. Merrick saved, and sent them to Cambridge, where they were examined and discovered to have been written with a pen, in Hebrew, plain and legible. The writing on the three remaining pieces of parchment was quotations from the Old Testament. See Deut. chap, vi., from 4th to 9th verse inclusive; also chap, xi., verse 13th to 21st inclusive; and Exodus chap, xiii., 11th to 16th inclusive; to which the reader can refer, if he has the curiosity to read this most interesting discovery. … It is said by Calmet that the above texts are the very passages of Scripture which the Jews used to write on the leaves of their phylacteries. These phylacteries were little rolls of parchment whereon were written certain words of the law. These they wore upon their forehead and upon the wrist of the left arm.”

(From the Monnoti, of Jan. 16, 1857.)

“New York, January 1, 1857.

“Mr. Editor. Sir,—In passing through Cincinnati, Ohio, a short time since, the following facts were communicated to me by Mr. Benjamin E. Styles of that place, who also exhibited to me a gold plate, found by him at the aforesaid place, in the year 1847, while excavating the earth for a cistern, a few feet above high water mark on the Ohio river. It was thrown out with the loose earth while excavating, about nine feet beneath the surface. Said plate is of fine gold, three or four inches in length, averaging about three-fourths of an inch in width, and about one-eighth of an inch in thickness, with the edges scolloped; in the face of which was beautifully set another plate of the same material, and fastened together by two pins, running through both. This latter plate is full of ancient raised letters, beautifully engraved upon its surface, the whole exhibiting fine workmanship. The plate was examined by a Dr. Wise, a very learned Rabbi of the Jewish Synagogue in Cincinnati, and editor of a Hebrew paper there, who pronounced the characters to be mostly ancient Egyptian.

—Yours truly,            P. P. Pratt.”

[The following is a certificate of Messrs. Drake and Co., of St. Louis, who printed a fac-simile of the above-mentioned gold plate]—

“We do hereby certify that we did print from a gold plate the above fac-simile, handed to us by Mr. Benjamin Styles, which he says he found while digging for a cistern in Cincinnati, Ohio. No. 1 is a frame of gold containing a thin plate, No 2, and appears to have been executed by a very superior workman.

Drake and Co., Printers,

Saint Louis, Missouri.”

(To be continued.)