Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/60

 and day by day the throng of visitors increased. No one was permitted to touch or approach the majestic reclining form of the mysterious man. A syndicate was speedily organized in the city which offered Mr. Newell $10,000 for his giant, but he refused to sell. Scientists were puzzled by the discovery, not questioning the statement of Newell that it was a human petrifaction. Upon visiting the spot to make investigations, they were not permitted to approach near enough to make satisfactory examinations or apply tests to determine the character of the alleged giant. Several of them were of the opinion that it was a statue, chiseled from a rock. Among these was Dr. James Hall, the noted geologist of New York, who was the first State Geologist of Iowa and afterward of Wisconsin. He made as careful an examination as the owner would permit and published a lengthy report of his investigations. In that report he says:

“It is certainly a great curiosity and, as it now presents itself, the most remarkable archaeological discovery ever made in this country and entirely unlike any relic of the past age yet known to us. It is clearly a statue cut by human hands and is in no way connected with petrifaction * * * nor is it a cast or model of any kind but an original. The importance of the object lies in its relation to the race or people of the past, formerly inhabiting that part of the country. The statue is of a far higher order and of an entirely different character from the smaller works of rude sculpture found in Mexico, Central America, or the Mississippi Valley.

In regard to the question of the antiquity of its origin we are compelled to rely upon the geological and chemical evidence. That the statue has lain for a long time where it now lies there can be no doubt. The entire length of the left side and back of the statue is eroded to the depth of an inch or more from the solution and removal of its substance by water percolating through the gravel stratum in which it lies embedded. Such a process of solution and removal of the gypsum, a mineral of slow solubility in the waters of that region, must have required a long period of years. Any theory of the recent burial of the statue in this place is disproved by the fact of the extensive solution and removal of the surface by water coming in by the gravel bed from the southwest. The most extensive erosion has taken place on the left side and beneath the back upon that side corresponding to the direction from which the water came. You will see therefore upon any theory of inhumation must have time for the gradual