Moses Thatcher discusses the presence of horses elephants, asses, oxen, and glass in the Book of Mormon and in light of New World discoveries.

Date
Aug 1881
Type
Periodical
Source
Moses Thatcher
LDS
Hearsay
Direct
Reference

Moses Thatcher, “Divine Origin of the Book of Mormon,” The Contributor 2, No. 11 (August 1881): 322-23

Scribe/Publisher
The Contributor
People
Moses Thatcher
Audience
Reading Public
Transcription

When the Book of Mormon was first published, some fifty years ago, one of the strong arguments brought against it by its disbelieving opponents, was that it spoke of the primitive inhabitants possessing elephants, horses, asses, oxen and so on; when, as these knowing individuals triumphantly pointed out, such animals were unknown in America, as evidenced very strikingly by the historical fact that the Aztecs of Mexico at the time of the conquest were greatly frightened and annoyed with the few horses which Cortez brought with him; believing them to possess supernatural powers against which it was useless for them to contend.

It does not appear that our elders at that time had any historical or scientific knowledge, with which to meet what was generally conceded to be the well established fact that horses and elephants had been from the remotest periods unknown in this country. Nor are they mentioned, so far as our knowledge extends, in any of the records of American antiquities. The Latter-day Saints knew the Book of Mormon to be true, and, therefore, willingly and faithfully bore testimony of its divine origin. But, in the estimation of the learned, who seldom make allowance for, or even admit the existence of what is known as the "illusions of history," their testimony on such points were treated with derision, and they themselves as fanatics. The fact that the Book of Mormon spoke of the existence, on this continent of horses and elephants was thrown into the teeth of our elders as an unanswerable argument, proving the Book of Mormon to be a fraud. But the .wisdom of God in this case, as in many others, has proven greater than the wisdom of boasting man. Had Joseph Smith been a close student of history—a learned man— instead of the unlearned boy that he was, and sought to palm upon the world in the Book of Mormon a fraud, as he was without stint, accused of doing, he would have guarded all such points and not have made it appear that horses and elephants were possessed by the inhabitants of this land nearly 4,000 years ago, when it was understood by the learned that no such animals were known here previous to the Spanish conquest. But, being unlearned, he did not guard such points; and, failing to do so, subjected his followers, the Book of Mormon, and himself to the scorn and ridicule of the wise.

Scarcely fifty years have passed, yet the developments of scientific research have already shown that the mound-builders of North America had, at least, a knowledge of the elephant form, for they have left it represented almost perfectly in some of their immense monumental mounds; and one need only examine the fine collection of bones, which have been found in Mexico, and are now carefully preserved in the Mexican National Museum, at the capital of the republic, to convince him that such animals, though, perhaps, long since extinct, did once actually exist here.

On this subject, we extract the following from the reports of Desire Charnay, published in the December (1880) number of the North American Review: "We collected a few ornaments, also some animal remains, viz.: some ribs (probably of the roebuck, though on this point I will not be positive, not being a Zoologist), some small scapulas, two teeth, and, stranger still, two enormous humeruses, much larger than the humerus of an ox; both of these bones are broken longitudinally, as though to take out the marrow. We found also the radius of an animal considerably larger than a horse. Whence these

bones? It is generally agreed that, previous to the conquest, there were neither oxen nor horses in America.

We found again to-day bones of large ruminants—a radius thirteen inches long and three and seven-tenths inches in diameter, and teeth from one and five-tenths to one and eight-tenths inches in length. Here are the remains of unknown animals, probably of mammoth bisons, domesticated by the Toltecs, at least used by them for food. This is in contradiction of history, which affirms that the Indians had no large domestic animals. Now, would a people, after once domesticating an animal, suffer the race to die out?

"On my return to the City of Mexico, Senor del Cartillo, Professor of Zoology in the School of Mines, on examining the bones of animals found at Tula, pronounced them to be the remains of Bos Americanus, horses, Andes sheep, llama, stag, etc., and fossil! If his judgment

is confirmed by that of the savants of Paris and the Smithsonian Institution, a new horizon is opened for the history of man in America. My victory will then be complete, as I shall have brought to light a new people, and a city unique in its originality, and shall have opened to the learned a new branch of natural history. Surely, this were enough to satisfy the most ambitious investigator."

Let it be remembered that these bones, which Mr. Charnay considers so remarkable a find, one that will open to the learned a "new branch of natural history," were discovered by his workmen while exhuming the ruins of some extensive buildings at the ancient metropolis of the Toltecs, situated about sixty-five miles to the north of the City of Mexico, in the month of August, A. D. 1880, and fifty years after the publication of the Book of Mormon. In speaking of these ruins, the great antiquarian explorer says: "It seems evident that, tradition to the contrary notwithstanding, the buildings must have been overturned, for not a wall of the oratorio was standing.'' Elsewhere he speaks of the date at which this occurred, and consequently the time when the bones and fine specimens of porcelain beautifully enameled, and parts of a. glass vase, iridized from being long in the ground, which he found there, to reach, at least, a thousand years into the mysterious past of a shadowy people, whose works partly remain as monuments of a remarkable race.

Alluding to the discovery of the piece of glass mentioned above, Mr. Charnay says: "On this subject, I made no comments, yet I will add that nations are like individuals: they always esteem themselves more highly civilized than their predecessors. The Chinese, the Hindoos, the Egyptians, have left to us evidences of their genius: they understood the making of glass and of porcelain, and many other arts before we did, and to me, it is no matter of surprise that an intelligent population such as the Toltecs, should have been able to erect monuments, to cut stone, to make porcelain, to invent enamel, and to make glass."

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