James Rollins - THE DEVIL COLONY

Native American History.Segueing into this topic, I should mention that there was much friction between Mormon settlers and Native Americans in the mid-1800s, including massacres and wars. But the Northwestern Band of Shoshone of Brigham City is known for being a Mormon Indian tribe.

1. Chief Canasatego is a real Iroquois leader who had a profound impact on the founding of America. Many people do believe him to be a lost Founding Father. The story related about the arrows and Franklin and how it led to the bundle of arrows in our national Great Seal is true.

2. As is Resolution 331 , passed in October of 1988, which acknowledges the influence that the Iroquois constitution had upon our own founding documents, including the Declaration of Independence.

3. For example, in 1787, John Rutledge of South Carolina read to members of the Constitution Convention from Iroquois law, words written 250 years before our constitution. Here are those words he read: "We, the people, to form a union, to establish peace, equity, and order..." Sound familiar?

4. Caucasoid remains from ancient America have been discovered in various regions of the United States and baffle anthropologists. A few of those are: Kennewick Man, Spirit Cave Mummy of Nevada, Oregon's Prospect Man, and Arlington Springs Woman. And there are many more.

5. Some of the oldest petroglyphs found in America are the Coso Petroglyphs, found above the China Lake basin in California, dating back sixteen thousand years.

6. A new study based on carbon content in stalagmites suggests that the Native American population in pre-Columbian America may have numbered over 100 million. That's more people than were living in Europe at that time.

7. For more about Indian legends associated with Yellowstone, check out Storytelling in Yellowstone: Horse and Buggy Tour Guides by Lee H. Whittlesey and Indian Legends from the Northern Rockies by Ella E. Clark.

8. The disappearance of the Anasazi continues to provoke great interest and speculation. One of the newest theories is that the Anasazi discovered a new faith, and this resulted in a religious war that wiped them out. Also, it is said that the eruptions that raised the Sunset Crater also had a huge impact on their ultimate fate.

Founding Fathers.We talked about Chief Canasatego as the lost Founding Father. Now let's look at those who were not lost.

1. Thomas Jefferson was a scientist, statesman, inventor, and politician. He was unique in that he also wanted better relations with the indigenous population in America. His interest was such that he built a huge collection of Native American artifacts that he kept at Monticello. Most of it mysteriously vanished after he died, including a decorated buffalo hide (and yes, Meriwether Lewis died on a buffalo-skin robe). Jefferson also did indeed send a secret letter to Congress to admit that a major purpose of the Lewis and Clark expedition was to spy on the Indians. And yes, he did help found the mint with his friend David Rittenhouse. And he was very fond of secret codes and ciphers, inventing several himself, including a code he used with Meriwether Lewis. And like Native Americans of the time, he had a profound interest in fossils.

2. Benjamin Franklin was indeed fascinated by the Laki eruption, which killed six million people and likely contributed to the factors that caused the French Revolution.

3. Meriwether Lewis (okay, he's not a Founding Father, but I'm putting him here because he was a friend of Jefferson's and a contemporary of the others). He was a soldier, spy, and scientist, so he would make a great Sigma Force member. He and Clark did indeed miss finding Yellowstone by a mere forty miles. Also, the quote from an early pioneer, hinting that the Indians were hiding something powerful inside Yellowstone, is a real quote. So, it's hard to believe Lewis's expedition never found Yellowstone... and so I wrote this story. It's also true that Lewis's death was considered a suicide, but mounting evidence now points to murder, most likely assassination. The burial site is as accurately described as I could make it.

The Great Seal.I already mentioned how the story of Chief Canasatego and the arrows is true. But so is the fact that the olive branch and bundle of arrows are the symbols representing Manasseh, one of the ten lost tribes of Israel. And it is this very tribe that the Book of Mormon suggests came to early America. Additionally, both Jefferson and Franklin had initially proposed that the Great Seal depict scenes of exiled Israelites. They lost that debate, but here are some thoughts to chew on. Could the symbols of the olive branch and arrows be a remnant of the two men's original proposals? If so, why were the Founding Fathers so obsessed with the lost tribes of Israel?

Science Tidbits.I try to be as accurate as possible in regard to the science in my novels, so most of the factoids are based on some manner of realistic data. I thought I'd signal a few here.

1. The Super-Kamiokande detector is a real facility doing subatomic particle research using a tank full of fifty thousand tons of ultrapure water. And yes, sixty billion neutrinos pass through your fingernail every second-and those particles still remain a mystery to modern physics.

2. The novel contains much information about volcanism . Most of it is true, including the fact that you should be careful about drilling into geothermal levels. Explosions and lava production have resulted.

3. On a minor note, the Underground Physics Research Laboratory at BYU is indeed buried underground north of its science building (sorry for blowing a hole in it).

4. Evidence of ancient nanotechnology does exist in Damascus steel, ancient medieval glass, and some hair dyes. As to modern nanotech, I went into that at length in the foreword: all true... and yes, that scary.

5. Weaponry in the book: Taser XREP shotguns, flashbangs, up-armor kits for Humvees, and one kick-ass cattle dog. All real.

Places.We're mostly in America, so it must be real.

1. There is a Serpent Indian Mound , but it's in Ohio, not Kentucky.

2. Sunset Crater does have lava tubes that hold ice all year round in the Arizona desert.

3. Wupatki does have a blowhole that opens into seven million cubic feet of cavern space and gusts of wind of up to thirty miles an hour do blow through it.

4. Crack-in-the-Rock Pueblo is a real place.

5. The Westman Islands south of Iceland do have the largest orca population (so, of course, they had to play a role). Ellirey Island can only be reached by rope and does have a small lodge on its top. Heimaey Island is indeed known as the Pompeii of the North.

6. Most of the landmarks in Yellowstone are accurate, including Fairyland Basin with its scatter of geyserite cones. And yes, since the 1990s, fewer than thirty people have visited that beautiful and strange little basin.

7. And yes , the Yellowstone caldera is due to erupt. It's late, in fact. The geological information that Chin gave regarding an impending eruption of the supervolcano and its aftermath is true . So it's not a matter of if that supervolcano will erupt, rather of when .

Other Books of Interest.While a long bibliography could be given here, I thought I'd share the books that are of the greatest relevance to this novel.

1. Solomon's Power Brokers by Christopher Knight and Alan Butler (specifically for information about the "star families")

2. Jefferson and Science by Silvio A. Bedini