He observed that certain inscriptions were met with in greater frequency than others.  Such as “For sale cheap”; “Billiards”; “S.  T.—­1860—­X”; “Keno”; “Ale on draught.”  Naturally, then, these must be religious maxims.  But this idea was cast aside by and by, as the mystery of the strange alphabet began to clear itself.  In time, the professor was enabled to translate several of the inscriptions with considerable plausibility, though not to the perfect satisfaction of all the scholars.  Still, he made constant and encouraging progress.

Finally a cavern was discovered with these inscriptions upon it: 

Watersidemuseum. 
Open at All Hours. 
Admission 50 cents. 
Wonderful collection of
Wax-works, ancient fossils,
etc.

Professor Woodlouse affirmed that the word “Museum” was equivalent to the phrase “lumgath molo,” or “Burial Place.”  Upon entering, the scientists were well astonished.  But what they saw may be best conveyed in the language of their own official report: 

“Erect, in a row, were a sort of rigid great figures which struck us instantly as belonging to the long extinct species of reptile called man, described in our ancient records.  This was a peculiarly gratifying discovery, because of late times it has become fashionable to regard this creature as a myth and a superstition, a work of the inventive imaginations of our remote ancestors.  But here, indeed, was Man, perfectly preserved, in a fossil state.  And this was his burial place, as already ascertained by the inscription.  And now it began to be suspected that the caverns we had been inspecting had been his ancient haunts in that old time that he roamed the earth—­for upon the breast of each of these tall fossils was an inscription in the character heretofore noticed.  One read, ‘captain Kidd the pirate’; another, ‘Queen Victoria’; another, ‘Abe Lincoln’; another, ‘George Washington,’ etc.

“With feverish interest we called for our ancient scientific records to discover if perchance the description of Man there set down would tally with the fossils before us.  Professor Woodlouse read it aloud in its quaint and musty phraseology, to wit: 

“’In ye time of our fathers Man still walked ye earth, as by tradition we know.  It was a creature of exceeding great size, being compassed about with a loose skin, sometimes of one color, sometimes of many, the which it was able to cast at will; which being done, the hind legs were discovered to be armed with short claws like to a mole’s but broader, and ye forelegs with fingers of a curious slimness and a length much more prodigious than a frog’s, armed also with broad talons for scratching in ye earth for its food.  It had a sort of feathers