MINISTERS IN A SLOUGH.

BY REV. MOSES C. CASS, POET LAUREATE OF IOWA CITY PRESBYTERY.

Inscribed to whom it may concern.

Come listen to my story, while I to you relate

The perils of two ministers, in the Hawk-Eye State.
One was a very aged man, his hair as white as snow,
The other was a young man, of sixty years or so.

One Saturday evening, about the hour of four,
They left the town of Kossuth, and their Syuod floor-
To ride over to Black Hawk, to spend the Sabbath day;
A distance of twelve miles, a rough and crooked way.

In the night and darkness, their road they might mistake,
So wisely they concluded to stop with farmer Blake;
Kindly they were entertained, and liberally they were fed,
And, after family worship, soon resting in their bed.

A clear and pleasant morning, bespoke a lovely day,
Breakfast and prayers over, they hastened on their way,
Rejoicing that the Lord had thus guided them aright—
And kept them from danger in a dark and gloomy night.

The swollen Iowa river, with its black and ugly sloughs,
All of them they must cross, no other way could choose;
Now, quickly they discovered these dread horrors of the West-
Serpentinely winding, in their deep and muddy nest.

"What shall we do, brother?" inquired the aged man;
"Go forward!" was replied, "for surely we must and can."
The horse, with the carriage, soon was plunging in;
And the prayers of these men were not the prayers of sin.

Another slough, still deeper, only a little way ahead,
With trees standing thickly in its dark and muddy bed.
No track could they discover, by which to guide their way,

. Here they wisely halted to see what each would say.

Age spoke: "What shall we do?" The other said, “Go ahead."

No, brother, I shall not," the other firmly said;

There is no must in it, for we can surely turn about,

And by the way we came, we certainly can get out."

But the counsel of the aged the younger did not heed,
So in he plunged alone, horrible sight indeed:
The horse almost swimming, the carriage half out of sight,
Winding round among the trees, not all the time upright.

By the mercy of the Lord, he gained the other shore,
Still the dangers of the way were not yet one-half o'er.
The old man inquired, "What now are you to do?"
"I am to turn about and come back after you."

"I think it will be best, in my returning back,

To hunt out, if possible, a different and better track."
So in again he plunged, a missionary trump,
And, when about midway, brought up against a stump.

The Hero of my story cried loudly at the last,

Against a stump, brother, I am now surely fast."

"Well, my stalled brother, say, what can you now do,
Fastened tight to a stump in the middle of the slough?”

"Oh, I'll strip off my clothes, then I can feel about,
And find the hidden stump and get the carriage out.
Such a bath this morning will do me no harm,
So you need have no fear or give the least alarm."

The horse getting restless, looked wishfully ashore,
He would sure been plunging in a few minutes more;

But the old man on shore said, “Charley, now stand still—”
He looked steadily ashore and seemed to say, "I surely will."

In water four feet deep, and in a muddy slough,
Relieved from the carriage, he brought his rider through.
Two more sloughs they must pass, but not so awful bad,
And when over the river, these missionaries were glad.

They rode up to the church, the Sabbath school not out,
A meeting for the evening was quickly given out.
To wash up, to dry up, clothes, papers, letters and books,
And get some refreshment, they went to Brother Hook's.

The evening being pleasant, the congregation fair,
A sermon by the younger, the older in the chair.
And to cap the climax, as you shall plainly see,
While the old man was sleeping, the younger got a V.

QUESTIONABLE ANTIQUITY OF INDIAN MOUNDS.

THE following correspondence with the late Professor Henry, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, will serve as an introduction to this article on the age of Indian mounds and Indian relics in Iowa. The disposition to exaggerate the age of these and other remains, and of claiming great antiquity for them, may well be questioned. An appeal to the facts, in any single case, is sufficient to disprove all claims to very great antiquity for these remains of past times, and to establish their more recent origin.

IOWA CITY, Iowa, April 26th, 1875.

Prof. J. Henry, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIR:-I have received and read with much interest your report for 1873. The memoirs and ethnological matters are very attractive, and so I suppose the scientific articles to those more versed than I am in such studies.

I see the writer on Michigan Mounds and Mines of Copper, conjectures that they may be seven or eight hundred years old. But the only evidence he gives is a pine tree in an artificial channel some two or three hundred years old.

I have for thirty years past, given some attention to Indian remains, or evidences of ancient structures, and 1 am well persuaded, that the expedition of Francis I. of France, to Canada, of three ships full of men of all arts and pursuits, one of which ships remained with all manner of boats and implements for exploring and working in metals, will give long enough time, with the assistance of natives, for all structures or works now remaining.

The fact that stone implements remain and are often found with the earliest remains now known, is only evincive of their use at the period of their deposit, iron and steel taking their place in subsequent times, for the aborigines would naturally continue to make and use them long after arts and commerce introduced metallic ones, just as some western tribes still use the bow while firearms are within their reach.

From 1541 to 1875, we find 334 years, a period long enough for the largest trees in the northern states to grow.

I wish some man would carry out this idea so that the tendency to exaggerate the antiquity of mounds and mines might be brought to reasonable bounds. There is too much disposition to antiquate every thing on earth and under the earth, as connected with human skill, and also as concerns the operations of nature.

I believe the facts are well authenticated as to copper and iron implements having been found imbedded in coal, and should it be found that they are so imbedded, it would go to show more recent formations than geologists affirm. So of stone, as where in a short time in certain soils, the human body takes (in its place and form) a petrified state after death.

Some years ago, a French philosopher made a calculation how long the Delta of the Mississippi had been forming making the time many thousands of years. Now, every navigator of the river or port of New Orleans, as well as every resident near either, well knows that no such estimate can be made with any certainty, since one such flood as 1851 would work greater changes in one year, than twenty-five years of common stages of water in the river.

I do not know that these hints are of much account, but such considerations make me inclined to restrict existing remains within proper limits.

I have not made any discoveries here worthy of note, nor have I been able to reduce the Sac and Fox vocabulary, which I have got, into a proper shape to send, and I may be under the necessity of forwarding it as it is to you. If I lived near the remnant of these Indians still in Iowa, or had the opportunity that the Indian Agent at Toledo (Iowa) has, I might make a worthy vocabulary for your Indian archives.

My health has not been very good since I returned from the east last autumn, during which absence I saw you at your office. With my best wishes for your health and prosperity,

I remain, most sincerely yours,

SAML. STORRS HOWE.

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, Į
WASHINGTON, D. C., APRIL, 30TH, 1875. )

S. S. Howe, Iowa City, Iowa.

SIR:-Many thanks for your interesting letter of the 26th inst. I fully agree with you as to the difficulty of fixing the dates with any degree of precision of geological or archæological events.

There is in the human mind an innate love of the marvelous which no degree of culture can entirely remove To a philosophical person there is noth

ing more grateful than precision of knowledge, yet, to the great majority of mankind the dissipation of the mysteries with which almost every subject is enveloped is not a desirable object, since it would be the loss of that reign of fogginess in which the imagination has an unbounded field to revel.

The Stone Age is a condition of the human race and not a chronological period. It may, therefore, coexist with a higher degree of civilization. There is the same difficulty in regard to establishing the epoch of the commencement of a geological change, since causes do not act in all cases with the same energy. Indeed, from the hypothesis now well established by analogy-that the earth was once in a state of incandescence like the sunwe must infer that the energies producing change were in a much greater state of activity than at the present time.

I am, very truly yours,

JOSEPH HENRY, Sec. S. I.

Much is said, of late, about "pre-historic" times. Now, what is pre-historic among savage and barbarous tribes, who have no written languages or history, is no evidence of antiquity. For example, the North American Indians have had no native written languages or history, and their remains and traditions go no further back than the coming of civilized and lettered white men, who were doubtless concerned with the natives in their rude structures of art, such as stone arrow-heads, axes, pestles, chisels, or copper axes and implements, with articles of clay for domestic use.

A CHILD'S CUP.

A very curious article of family use was found near Iowa City, Iowa, in excavating an Indian mound. It resembles a toad or turtle, head and all, with a hollow and hole for drinking purposes underneath. It has, besides other marks unknown to the writer, a circle with seven lines from the center to the circumference, indicative of seven years of life, and of futurity, of which the circle is an emblem.

All attempts thus far to get a heliotype or engraving of it, have been vain. The owner, Mr. Davis, a druggist of Iowa City, claims it, and refuses to part with it. Professor Baird, now Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, D. C., wishes, at least, the loan of it, to make a cast of it; and