Professor George Carter
Texas A&M University - College Station- Texas - USA

15-2-1982

Dear Professor Carter,

I thank you for your letter of January 21. Good to hear from you and thanks for your further information.

I will send you a copy of my bookThe Pekin Bantam in Australia  under separate cover. by surface mail. I will take a little time to get to you by that medium, perhaps 2 to 3 months. Air mail rates in Australia are very high for packages. Please overlook the typographical errors for I had to type the stencils myself and am not a very good typist. However I had to get the message across one way or another and printing costs are pretty high also.

Now about Picuris. I assume Picuris is in Mexico? Could you give me approximate location. Also Gran Quivira. That 1400 at Picuris makes it pre-Columbian?

I have written to Mc Kusick to the address you gave me. I don’t know where Finsterbusch got this information on Dutch and introduction of cocks.

Mrs A.C.Banning-Vogelpoel of the Netherlands with whom I correspond, a poultry authority from that country, advised me as follows and I quote:
"In the 17^th century (before Roggeveen who in 1722 discovered Easter Island) Dutch pirates commanded by Olivier van Nordt came and brought in Asiatic fowl. These pirates being driven away in the beginning of the 17^th century from the Sonda Islands by the Dutch Government provisioned at Bali and took live fowl and pigs with them and exchanged these with the Araucana Indians for other things. The Dutch pirates staid for about 25 years in Chile."

I think her reference was van Gink. I would agree with you as to the probability of Asiatic fowl came to the America before 1500. Regarding Bullock’s bone. They reckoned at the Smithsonian Institution about 250 years old (1934) Wetmore. I will write and mention about the C14 dating tests. They could do something about it. It could be interesting.

OK on being retired and writing the newspaper column. I don’t have much time to spare as I’m working on this treatise. It’s coming along OK. Your info has been of great assistance.

I have just been working over Jànossy’s paper on the fossil remains of Gallus (Pleistocene period) in the Carpathian Basin, Hungary. Very important I consider. Thanks for your info on the shipwreck off Rio de Janeiro. I think that Heyerdahl proved that ocean comings and goings were possible long before Columbus both in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Don’t know whether you have read his book Tigris. The papyrus-boat built in Mesopotamia sailed into the Indian Ocean. From memory he imported someone from South America to build it.

That’s about it for the moment. Start looking for the book in about 2 to 3 months.

Regards.