[32] The italics are as in the original.
But this mild statement did not daunt Mr. McWhorter. Having calmly pronounced Dr. White "in error," he proceeded with sublime disregard of every other human being. He found that the statue "belongs to the winged or 'cherubim' type"; that "down the left side of the figure are seen the outlines of folded wings—even the separate feathers being clearly distinguishable"; that "the left side of the head is inexpressibly noble and majestic," and "conforms remarkably to the type of the head of the mound-builders"; that "the left arm terminates in what appears to be a huge extended lion's paw"; that "the dual idea expressed in the head is carried out in the figure"; that "in the wonderfully artistic mouth of the divine side we find a suggestion of that of the Greek Apollo." Mr. McWhorter also found other things that no other human being was ever able to discern, and among them "a crescent-shaped wound upon the left side," "traces of ancient coloring" in all parts of the statue, and evidences that the minute pores were made by "borers." He lays great stress on an "ancient medal" found in Onondaga, which he thinks belongs "to the era of the mound-builders," and on which he finds a "circle inclosing an equilateral cross, both cross and circle, like the wheel of Ezekiel, being full of small circles or eyes." As a matter of fact, this "ancient medal" was an English penny, which a street gamin of Syracuse said that he had found near the statue, and the "equilateral cross" was simply the usual cross of St. George. Mr. McWhorter thinks the circle inclosing the cross denotes the "world soul," and in a dissertation of about twenty pages he discourses upon "Baal," "Tammuz," "King Hiram of Tyre," the "ships of Tarshish," the "Eluli," and "Atlas," with plentiful arguments drawn from a multitude of authorities, and among them Sanchoniathon, Ezekiel, Plato, Dr. Dollinger, Isaiah, Melanchthon, Lenormant, Humboldt, Sir John Lubbock, and Don Domingo Juarros,—finally satisfying himself that the statue was "brought over by a colony of Phenicians," possibly several hundred years before Christ.[33]
[33] See the "Galaxy" article, as above, passim.
With the modesty of a true scholar he says, "Whether the final battle at Onondaga . . . occurred before or after this event we cannot tell"; but, resuming confidence, he says, "we only know that at some distant period the great statue, brought in a 'ship of Tarshish' across the sea of Atl, was lightly covered with twigs and flowers and these with gravel." The deliberations of the Pickwick Club over "Bill Stubbs, His Mark" pale before this; and Dickens in his most expansive moods never conceived anything more funny than the long, solemn discussion between the erratic Hebrew scholar and the eminent medical professor at New Haven over the "pores" of the statue, which one of them thought "the work of minute animals," which the other thought "elaborate Phenician workmanship," which both thought exquisite, and which the maker of the statue had already confessed that he had made by rudely striking the statue with a mallet faced with needles.
Mr. McWhorter's new theory made no great stir in the United States, though some, doubtless, took comfort in it; but it found one very eminent convert across the ocean, and in a place where we might least have expected him. Some ten years after the events above sketched while residing at Berlin as minister of the United States, I one day received from an American student at the University of Halle a letter stating that he had been requested by no less a personage than the eminent Dr Schlottmann, instructor in Hebrew in the theological school of that university,—the successor of Gesenius in that branch of instruction,—to write me for information regarding the Phenician statue described by the Rev Alexander McWhorter.
In reply, I detailed to him the main points in the history of the case, as it has been given in this chapter, adding, as against the Phenician theory, that nothing in the nature of Phenician remains had ever been found within the borders of the United States, and that if they had been found, this remote valley, three hundred miles from the sea, barred from the coast by mountain-ranges, forests, and savage tribes, could never have been the place chosen by Phenician navigators for such a deposit; that the figure itself was clearly not a work of early art, but a crude development by an uncultured stone-cutter out of his remembrance of things in modern sculpture; and that the inscription was purely the creation of Mr. McWhorter's imagination.
In his acknowledgment, my correspondent said that I had left no doubt in his mind as to the fact that the giant was a swindle; but that he had communicated my letter to the eminent Dr. Schlottmann, that the latter avowed that I had not convinced him, and that he still believed the Cardiff figure to be a Phenician statue bearing a most important inscription.
One man emerged from this chapter in the history of human folly supremely happy: this was Hull, the inventor of the "giant." He had at last made some money, had gained a reputation for "smartness," and, what probably pleased him best of all, had revenged himself upon the Rev. Mr. Turk of Ackley, Iowa, who by lung-power had worsted him in the argument as to the giants mentioned in Scripture.
So elate was he that he shortly set about devising another "petrified man" which would defy the world. It was of clay baked in a furnace, contained human bones, and was provided with "a tail and legs of the ape type"; and this he caused to be buried and discovered in Colorado. This time he claimed to have the aid of one of his former foes—the great Barnum; and all went well until his old enemy, Professor Marsh of Yale, appeared and blasted the whole enterprise by a few minutes of scientific observation and common-sense discourse.
Others tried to imitate Hull, and in 1876 one—William Buddock of Thornton, St. Clair County, Michigan—manufactured a small effigy in cement, and in due time brought about the discovery of it. But, though several country clergymen used it to strengthen their arguments as to the literal, prosaic correctness of Genesis, it proved a failure. Finally, in 1889, twenty years after "the Cardiff Giant" was devised, a "petrified man" was found near Bathurst in Australia, brought to Sydney, and exhibited. The result was, in some measure, the same as in the case of the American fraud. Excellent people found comfort in believing, and sundry pseudo-scientific men of a cheap sort thought it best to pander to this sentiment; but a well-trained geologist pointed out the absurdity of the popular theory, and finally the police finished the matter by securing evidences of fraud.[34]