Transactions and Collections Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1820 edition. Excerpt: ...of our people, and that of the Hindoos and southern Tartars, furnish no evidence of a common origin, then I am no judge of the nature and weight of testimony. Some years since, a clay vessel was discovered about twenty feet below the surface, in alluvial earth, in digging a well near Nashville, Tennessee. This piece of pottery was found standing on a rock, from whence a spring of water issued. This vessel was taken to Mr. Peale's museum at Philadelphia, where it now is, as I am informed. It contains about one gallon; is circular, with a flat bottom, from which it rises in a somewhat globose form, terminating at the summit with the figure of a female head. The only hole in the vessel is situated towards the summit of the globular part of it. The features of the face of the female are Asiatick. The crown of the head is covered by a cap of a pyramidical figure, with a flattened, circular summit, ending at the apex, with a round button. The ears are large, extending as low as the chin. The features resemble many of those engraved for Raffle's History; and the cap resembles Asiatick head dresses. The foregoing was taken from an essay in the "Western Review," written by Mr. John D. Clifford. Here is farther proof of the derivation of these people from Hindostan. The features of the face; the manner of covering the head; the shape of the vessel; the religious uses to which it was probably put at this primitive, and once clear fountain, in performing ablutions, all tend to confirm us in such a belief. Could all these things have so happened, had the authors originated any where else? An Idol, of which this is a correct miniature, was, a few years since, dug up in Natchez, Missi sippi, on a piece of ground, where, according to tradition, ...