That Mr. J. H. Hooper, Bradley Co., Tenn., having come upon a curious stone, in some woods upon his farm, investigated. He dug. He unearthed a long wall. Upon this wall were inscribed many alphabetic characters. "872 characters have been examined, many of them duplicates, and a few imitations of animal forms, the moon, and other objects. Accidental imitations of oriental alphabets are numerous.
The part that seems significant:
That these letters had been hidden under a layer of cement.
And still, in our own heterogeneity, or unwillingness, or inability, to concentrate upon single concepts, we shall—or we sha'n't—accept that, though there may have been a Lost Colony or Lost Expedition from Somewhere, upon this earth, and extra-mundane visitors who could never get back, there have been other extra-mundane visitors, who have gone away again—altogether quite in analogy with the Franklin Expedition and Peary's flittings in the Arctic
And a wreck that occurred to one group of them
And the loot that was lost overboard
The Chinese seals of Ireland.
Not the things with the big, wistful eyes; that lie on ice, and that are taught to balance objects on their noses—but inscribed stamps, with which to make impressions.
Proc. Roy. Irish Acad., 1-381:
A paper was read by Mr. J. Huband Smith, descriptive of about a dozen Chinese seals that had been found in Ireland. They are all alike: each a cube with an animal seated upon it. "It is said that the inscriptions upon them are of a very ancient class of Chinese characters."
The three points that have made a leper and an outcast of this datum—but only in the sense of disregard, because nowhere that I know of is it questioned:
Agreement among archæologists that there were no relations, in the remote past, between China and Ireland;
That no other objects, from ancient China—virtually, I suppose—have ever been found in Ireland;
The great distances at which these seals have been found apart.
After Mr. Smith's investigations—if he did investigate, or do more than record—many more Chinese seals were found in Ireland, and, with one exception, only in Ireland. In 1852, about 60 had been found. Of all archæologic finds in Ireland, "none is enveloped in greater mystery." (Chamber's Journal, 16-364.) According to the
