The spring here is in a basin some 60 to 80 acres in extent in which are ponds and tule marsh. Close by is an extensive ancient Indian camping ground, over which are scattered very many “chips” made from manufacturing arrow points from quartz crystal, chert, chalcedony, flint, and other similar material.
The figures in the sketch inclosed are situated relatively, as to size and location, as they occur on the rock. The latter is cracked and slopes at different angles, but the figures are all visible from a single point of view. There are several other figures in this group that are too indistinct to copy owing to age, or weather wearing. The group copied is the most extensive one seen, but many smaller groups and single figures are to be found on the rocks near by.
The Shoshoni inhabit this region and a few families of Shoshoni live about the Panamint mountains at present.
Dr. C. Hart Merriam, of the Department of Agriculture, on his return from the exploration of Death valley, kindly furnished a photograph of a ledge in Emigrant canyon, Panamint mountains, which was received too late for insertion in this work. This is much regretted, as a large number of petroglyphs are represented in groups. The characters are of the Shoshonean type. Among them are “Moki goats,” tridents, the Greek Φ, many crosses, and other figures shown in this chapter as found in the same general region.
In the Mojave desert, about 2 miles north of Daggett station, according to the Mining and Scientific Press (a) is a small porphyritic butte known as “Rattlesnake rock,” “so named by reason of the immense number of these reptiles that find shelter in this mass of rock.” The accompanying Fig. 19 is a reproduction of that given in the paper quoted. The author states that “the implement used in making these characters was evidently a dull-pointed stone, as the lines are not sharp, and the sides of the indentation show marks of striation.”
Lieut. Whipple reports the discovery of pictographs at Piute creek, about 30 miles west of the Mojave villages. These are carved upon a rock, “are numerous, appear old, and are too confusedly obscured to be easily traceable.” They bear great general resemblance to drawings scattered over northeast Arizona, southern Utah, and western New Mexico.
From information received from Mr. Alphonse Pinart, pictographic records exist in the hills east of San Bernardino, somewhat resembling those at Tule river in the southern spurs of the Sierra Nevada, Kern county.
Mr. Willard J. Whitney, of Elmhurst, Lackawanna county, Pennsylvania, gives information regarding nearly obliterated pecked petroglyphs upon two flat granite rocks, or bowlders, on the summit of a mountain 4 miles directly west of Escondido, San Diego county, California. The designs are not colored, and are not more than one-eighth or one-fourth of an inch in depth. There is a good lookout from the eminence, but there are no indications of either trails or burials in the vicinity.
This may be the locality mentioned by Mr. Barnes, of San Diego, who furnished information relating to petroglyphs in San Diego county.
Dr. Hoffman reports the following additional localities in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles counties. Fifteen miles west of Santa Barbara, on the northern summit of the Santa Ynez range, and near the San Marcos pass, is a group of paintings in red and black. Fig. 20 resembles a portion of a checker-board in the arrangement of squares.
Serpentine and zigzag lines occur, as also curved lines with serrations on the concave sides; figures of the sun; short lines and groups of short parallel lines, and figures representing types of insect forms also appear, as shown in Figs. 21 and 22.
These paintings are in a cavity near the base of an immense bowlder, over 20 feet in height. A short distance from this is a flat granitic bowlder, containing twenty-one mortar holes, which had evidently been used by visiting Indians during the acorn season. Oaks are very abundant, and their fruit formed one of the sources of subsistence.
Three miles west-northwest of this locality, in the valley near the base of the mountain, are indistinct figures in faded red, painted upon a large rock. The characters appear similar, in general, to those above mentioned.
Forty-three miles west of Santa Barbara, in the Najowe valley, is a promontory, at the base of which is a large shallow cavern, the opening being smaller than the interior, upon the roof and back of which are many designs, some of which are reproduced in Fig. 23, of forms similar to those observed at San Marcos pass. Several characters appear to have been drawn at a later date than others, such as horned cattle, etc. The black used was a manganese compound, while the red pigments consist of ferruginous clays, abundant at numerous localities in the mountain canyons.
Some of the human figures are drawn with the hands and arms in the attitude of making the gestures for surprise or astonishment, and negation, as in Fig. 24.
The characters in Fig. 25 resemble forms which occur at Tulare valley, and in Owens valley, respectively, and insect forms also occur as in Fig. 26.
Other designs abounding at this locality are shown in Figs. 27 and 28.
One of the most extensive groupings, and probably the most elaborately drawn, is in the Carisa plain, near Mr. Oreña’s ranch, 60 or 70 miles due north of Santa Barbara. The most conspicuous figure is that of the sun, resembling a human face, with ornamental appendages at the cardinal points, and bearing striking resemblance to some Moki masks and pictographic work. Serpentine lines and anomalous forms also abound.
Four miles northeast of Santa Barbara, near the residence of Mr. Stevens, is an isolated sandstone bowlder measuring about 20 feet high and 30 feet in diameter, upon the western side of which is a slight cavity bearing designs shown in Fig. 29, which correspond in general form to others in Santa Barbara county. The gesture for negation appears in the attitude of the human figures.
Half a mile farther east, on Dr. Coe’s farm, is another smaller bowlder, in a cavity of which various engravings appear shown in Fig. 30. Parts of the drawings have disappeared through disintegration of the rock, which is called “Pulpit rock,” on account of the shape of the cavity, its position at the side of the narrow valley, and the echo observed upon speaking a little above the ordinary tone of voice.
Painted rocks also occur in the Azuza canyon, about 30 miles northeast of Los Angeles, of which Fig. 31 gives copies.
Just before his departure from the Santa Barbara region, Dr. Hoffman was informed of the existence of eight or nine painted records in that neighborhood, which up to that time had been observed only by a few sheep-herders and hunters.
Mr. L. L. Frost, of Susanville, California, reports the occurrence of pictographs (undoubtedly petroglyphs) 15 miles south of that town, on Willow creek, and at Milford, in the lower end of the valley. No details were furnished as to their general type and condition.
On Porter creek, 9 miles southwest of Healdsburg, on a large bowlder of hornblende syenite, petroglyphs similar to those found in Arizona and Nevada are to be seen. They are generally oblong circles or ovals, some of which contain crosses.
Figs. 32 and 33 are reduced copies 1/32 of original size of colored petroglyphs found by Dr. Hoffman in September, 1884, 12 miles west-northwest of the city of Santa Barbara, California. The locality is almost at the summit of the Santa Ynez range of mountains; the gray sandstone rock on which they are painted is about 30 feet high and projects from a ridge so as to form a very marked promontory extending into a narrow mountain canyon. At the base of the western side of this bowlder is a rounded cavity, measuring on the inside about 15 feet in width and 8 feet in height. The floor ascends rapidly toward the back of the cave, and the entrance is rather smaller in dimensions than the above measurements of the interior. About 40 yards west of this rock is a fine spring of water. One of the four old Indian trails leading northward across the mountains passes by this locality, and it is probable that this was one of the camping places of the tribe which came south to trade, and that some of its members were the authors of the paintings. The three trails beside the one just mentioned cross the mountains at several points east of this, the most distant being about 15 miles. Other trails were known, but these four were most direct to the immediate vicinity of the Spanish settlement which sprang up shortly after the establishment of the Santa Barbara mission in 1786. The appearance and position of these and other pictographs in the vicinity appear to be connected with the several trails. The colors used in the paintings are red and black.
The circles figured in b and d of Fig. 32, and c, r, and w of Fig. 33, together with other similar circular marks bearing cross lines upon the interior, were at first unintelligible, as their forms among various tribes have very different signification. The character in Fig. 32, above and projecting from d, resembles the human form, with curious lateral bands of black and white, alternately. Two similar characters appear, also, in Fig. 33, a, b. In a the lines from the head would seem to indicate a superior rank or condition of the person depicted.
At the private ethnologic collection of Mr. A. F. Coronel, of Los Angeles, California, Dr. Hoffman discovered a clue to the general import of the above petroglyphs, as well as the signification of some of their characters. In a collection of colored illustrations of old Mexican costumes he found blankets bearing borders and colors nearly identical with those shown in the circles in Fig. 32, d, and Fig. 33, c, r, w. It is probable that the circles represent bales of blankets which early became articles of trade at the Santa Barbara mission. If this supposition is correct, the cross lines would seem to represent the cords used in tying the blankets into bales, which same cross lines appear as cords in l, Fig. 33. Mr. Coronel also possesses small figures of Mexicans, of various conditions of life, costumes, trades, and professions, one of which, a painted statuette, is a representation of a Mexican lying down flat upon an outspread serape, similar in color and form to the black and white bands shown in the upper figure of d, Fig. 32, and a, b, of Fig. 33, and instantly suggesting the explanation of those figures. Upon the latter the continuity of the black and white bands is broken, as the human figures are probably intended to be in front, or on top, of the drawings of the blankets.
The small statuette above mentioned is that of a Mexican trader, and if the circles in the petroglyphs are considered to represent bales of blankets, the character in Fig. 32, d, is still more interesting, from the union of one of these circles with a character representing the trader, i. e., the man possessing the bales. Bales, or what appear to be bales, are represented to the top and right of the circle in d, in that figure. In Fig. 33, l, a bale is upon the back of what appears to be a horse, led in an upward direction by an Indian whose headdress and ends of the breechcloth are visible. To the right of the bale are three short lines, evidently showing the knot or ends of the cords used in tying a bale of blankets without colors, therefore of less importance, or of other goods. Other human forms appear in the attitude of making gestures, one also in j, Fig. 33, probably carrying a bale of goods. In the same figure u represents a centipede, an insect found occasionally south of the mountains, but reported as extremely rare in the immediate northern regions. For remarks upon x in the same figure see Chapter XX, Section 2, under the heading The Cross.
Mr. Coronel stated that when he first settled in Los Angeles, in 1843, the Indians living north of the San Fernando mountains manufactured blankets of the fur and hair of animals, showing transverse bands of black and white similar to those depicted, which were sold to the inhabitants of the valley of Los Angeles and to Indians who transported them to other tribes.
It is probable that the pictographs are intended to represent the salient features of a trading expedition from the north. The ceiling of the cavity found between the paintings represented in the two figures has disappeared, owing to disintegration, thus leaving a blank about 4 feet long, and 6 feet from the top to the bottom between the paintings as now presented.
Petroglyphs are reported by Mr. Cyrus F. Newcomb as found upon cliffs on Rock creek, 15 miles from Rio Del Norte, Colorado. Three small photographs, submitted with this statement, indicate the characters to have been pecked; they consist of men on horseback, cross-shaped human figures, animals, and other designs greatly resembling those found in the country of the Shoshonean tribes, examples of which are given infra.
Another notice of the same general locality is made by Capt. E. L. Berthoud (a) as follows:
The place is 20 miles southeast of Rio Del Norte, at the entrance of the canyon of the Piedra Pintada (Painted rock) creek. The carvings are found on the right of the canyon or valley and upon volcanic rocks. They bear the marks of age and are cut in, not painted, as is still done by the Utes everywhere. They are found for a quarter of a mile along the north wall of the canyon, on the ranches of W. M. Maguire and F. T. Hudson, and consist of all manner of pictures, symbols, and hieroglyphics done by artists whose memory even tradition does not now preserve. The fact that these are carvings done upon such hard rock invests them with additional interest, as they are quite distinct from the carvings I saw in New Mexico and Arizona on soft sandstone. Though some of them are evidently of much greater antiquity than others, yet all are ancient, the Utes admitting them to have been old when their fathers conquered the country.
Mr. Charles D. Wright, of Durango, Colorado, in a communication dated February 20, 1885, gives an account of some “hieroglyphs” on rocks and upon the walls of cliff houses near the boundary line between Colorado and New Mexico. He says:
The following were painted in red and black paints on the wall (apparently the natural rock wall) of a cliff house: At the head was a chief on his horse, armed with spear and lance and wearing a pointed hat and robe; behind this character were some twenty characters representing people on horses lassoing horses, etc. In fact the whole scene represented breaking camp and leaving in a hurry. The whole painting measured about 12 by 16 feet.
Mr. Wright further reports characters on rocks near the San Juan river. Four characters represent men as if in the act of taking an obligation, hands extended, and wearing a “kind of monogram on breast, and at their right are some hieroglyphics written in black paint covering a space 3 by 4 feet.”
The best discussed and probably the most interesting of the petroglyphs in the region are described and illustrated by Mr. W. H. Holmes (a), of the Bureau of Ethnology. The illustrations are here reproduced in Figs. 34 to 37, and the remarks of Mr. Holmes, slightly condensed, are as follows:
The forms reproduced in Fig. 34 occur on the Rio Mancos, near the group of cliff houses. They are chipped into the rock evidently by some very hard implement and rudely represent the human figure. They are certainly not attempts to represent nature, but have the appearance rather of arbitrary forms, designed to symbolize some imaginary being.
The forms shown in Fig. 35 were found in the same locality, not engraved, but painted in red and white clay upon the smooth rocks. These were certainly done by the cliff-builders, and probably while the houses were in process of construction, since the material used is identical with the plaster of the houses. The sketches and notes were made by Mr. Brandegee. The reproduction is approximately one-twelfth the size of the original.
The examples shown in Fig. 36 occur on the Rio San Juan about 10 miles below the mouth of the Rio La Plata and are actually in New Mexico. A low line of bluffs, composed of light-colored massive sandstones that break down in great smooth-faced blocks, rises from the river level and sweeps around toward the north. Each of these great blocks has offered a very tempting tablet to the graver of the primitive artist, and many of them contain curious and interesting inscriptions. Drawings were made of such of these as the limited time at my disposal would permit. They are all engraved or cut into the face of the rock, and the whole body of each figure has generally been chipped out, frequently to the depth of one-fourth or one-half of an inch.
The work on some of the larger groups has been one of immense labor, and must owe its completion to strong and enduring motives. With a very few exceptions the engraving bears undoubted evidence of age. Such new figures as occur are quite easily distinguished both by the freshness of the chipped surfaces and by the designs themselves. The curious designs given in the final group have a very perceptible resemblance to many of the figures used in the embellishment of pottery.
The most striking group observed is given in Fig. 37 A, same locality. It consists of a great procession of men, birds, beasts, and fanciful figures. The whole picture as placed upon a rock is highly spirited and the idea of a general movement toward the right, skillfully portrayed. A pair of winged figures hover about the train as if to watch, or direct its movements; behind these are a number of odd figures, followed by an antlered animal resembling a deer, which seems to be drawing a notched sledge containing two figures of men. The figures forming the main body of the procession appear to be tied together in a continuous line, and in form resemble one living creature about as little as another. Many of the smaller figures above and below are certainly intended to represent dogs, while a number of men are stationed about here and there as if to keep the procession in order.
As to the importance of the event recorded in this picture, no conclusions can be drawn; it may represent the migration of a tribe or family or the trophies of a victory. A number of figures are wanting in the drawing at the left, while some of those at the right may not belong properly to the main group. The reduction is, approximately, to one-twelfth.
Designs B and C of the same figure represent only the more distinct portions of two other groups. The complication of figures is so great that a number of hours would have been necessary for their delineation, and an attempt to analyze them here would be fruitless.
It will be noticed that the last two petroglyphs are in New Mexico, but they are so near the border of Colorado and so connected with the series in that state that they are presented under the same heading.
The following account is extracted from Rafn’s Antiquitates Americanæ (a):
In the year 1789 Doctor Ezra Stiles, D. D., visited a rock situated in the Township of Kent in the State of Connecticut, at a place called Scaticook, by the Indians. He thus describes it: “Over against Scaticook and about one hundred rods East of Housatonic River, is an eminence or elevation which is called Cobble Hill. On the top of this stands the rock charged with antique unknown characters. This rock is by itself and not a portion of the Mountains; it is of White Flint; ranges North and South; is from twelve to fourteen feet long; and from eight to ten wide at base and top; and of an uneven surface. On the top I did not perceive any characters; but the sides all around are irregularly charged with unknown characters, made not indeed with the incision of a chisel, yet most certainly with an iron tool, and that by pecks or picking, after the manner of the Dighton Rock. The Lacunae or excavations are from a quarter to an inch wide; and from one tenth to two tenths of an inch deep. The engraving did not appear to be recent or new, but very old.”
Charles C. Jones, jr., (a) describes a petroglyph in Georgia as follows:
In Forsyth county, Georgia, is a carved or incised bowlder of fine grained granite, about 9 feet long, 4 feet 6 inches high, and 3 feet broad at its widest point. The figures are cut in the bowlder from one-half to three-fourths of an inch deep. It is generally believed that they are the work of the Cherokees.
The illustration given by him is here reproduced in Fig. 38. It will be noted that the characters in it are chiefly circles, including plain, nucleated, and concentric, sometimes two or more being joined by straight lines, forming what is now known as the “spectacle shaped” figure. The illustrations should be compared with the many others presented in this paper under the heading of Cup Sculptures, see Chapter V, infra.
Dr. M. F. Stephenson (a) mentions sculptures of human feet, various animals, bear tracks, etc., in Enchanted mountain, Union county, Georgia. The whole number of sculptures is reported as one hundred and forty-six.
Mr. Jones (b) gives a different résumé of the objects depicted, as follows:
Upon the Enchanted mountain, in Union county, cut in plutonic rock, are the tracks of men, women, children, deer, bears, bisons, turkeys, and terrapins, and the outlines of a snake, of two deer, and of a human hand. These sculptures—so far as they have been ascertained and counted—number one hundred and thirty-six. The most extravagant among them is that known as the footprint of the “Great Warrior.” It measures 18 inches in length and has six toes. The other human tracks and those of the animals are delineated with commendable fidelity.
Mr. G. K. Gilbert, of the U. S. Geological Survey, has furnished a small collection of drawings of Shoshonean petroglyphs from Oneida, Idaho, shown in Fig. 39. Some of them appear to be totemic characters, and possibly were made to record the names of visitors to the locality.
Mr. Willard D. Johnson, of the U. S. Geological Survey, reports pictographic remains observed by him near Oneida, Idaho, in 1879. The figures represent human beings and were on a rock of basalt.
A copy of another petroglyph found in Idaho appears in Fig. 1092, infra.
Petroglyphs are reported by Mr. John Criley as occurring near Ava, Jackson county, Illinois. The outlines of the characters observed by him were drawn from memory and submitted to Mr. Charles S. Mason, of Toledo, Ohio, through whom they were furnished to the Bureau of Ethnology. Little reliance can be placed upon the accuracy of such drawing, but from the general appearance of the sketches the originals of which they are copies were probably made by one of the middle Algonquian tribes of Indians.
The “Piasa” rock, as it is generally designated, was referred to by the missionary explorer Marquette in 1675. Its situation was immediately above the city of Alton, Illinois.
Marquette’s remarks are translated by Dr. Francis Parkman (a) as follows:
On the flat face of a high rock were painted, in red, black, and green, a pair of monsters, each “as large as a calf, with horns like a deer, red eyes, a beard like a tiger, and a frightful expression of countenance. The face is something like that of a man, the body covered with scales; and the tail so long that it passes entirely round the body, over the head, and between the legs, ending like that of a fish.”
Another version, by Davidson and Struvé (a), of the discovery of the petroglyph is as follows:
Again they (Joliet and Marquette) were floating on the broad bosom of the unknown stream. Passing the mouth of the Illinois, they soon fell into the shadow of a tall promontory, and with great astonishment beheld the representation of two monsters painted on its lofty limestone front. According to Marquette, each of these frightful figures had the face of a man, the horns of a deer, the beard of a tiger, and the tail of a fish so long that it passed around the body, over the head, and between the legs. It was an object of Indian worship and greatly impressed the mind of the pious missionary with the necessity of substituting for this monstrous idolatry the worship of the true God.
A footnote connected with the foregoing quotation gives the following description of the same rock:
Near the mouth of the Piasa creek, on the bluff, there is a smooth rock in a cavernous cleft, under an overhanging cliff, on whose face, 50 feet from the base, are painted some ancient pictures or hieroglyphics, of great interest to the curious. They are placed in a horizontal line from east to west, representing men, plants, and animals. The paintings, though protected from dampness and storms, are in great part destroyed, marred by portions of the rock becoming detached and falling down.
Mr. McAdams (a), of Alton, Illinois, says “The name Piasa is Indian and signifies, in the Illini, ‘The bird which devours men.’” He furnishes a spirited pen-and-ink sketch, 12 by 15 inches in size and purporting to represent the ancient painting described by Marquette. On the picture is inscribed the following in ink: “Made by Wm. Dennis, April 3d, 1825.” The date is in both letters and figures. On the top of the picture in large letters are the two words, “FLYING DRAGON.” This picture, which has been kept in the old Gilham family of Madison county and bears the evidence of its age, is reproduced as Fig. 40.
He also publishes another representation (Fig. 41) with the following remarks:
One of the most satisfactory pictures of the Piasa we have ever seen is in an old German publication entitled “The Valley of the Mississippi Illustrated. Eighty illustrations from nature, by H. Lewis, from the Falls of St. Anthony to the Gulf of Mexico,” published about the year 1839 by Arenz & Co., Düsseldorf, Germany. One of the large full-page plates in this work gives a fine view of the bluff at Alton, with the figure of the Piasa on the face of the rock. It is represented to have been taken on the spot by artists from Germany. We reproduce that part of the bluff (the whole picture being too large for this work) which shows the pictographs. In the German picture there is shown just behind the rather dim outlines of the second face a ragged crevice, as though of a fracture. Part of the bluff’s face might have fallen and thus nearly destroyed one of the monsters, for in later years writers speak of but one figure. The whole face of the bluff was quarried away in 1846-’47.
Under Myths and Mythic Animals, Chapter XIV, Section 2, are illustrations and descriptions which should be compared with these accounts, and Chapter XXII gives other examples of errors and discrepancies in the description and copying of petroglyphs.
Mr. A. D. Jones (a) says of the same petroglyph:
After the distribution of firearms among the Indians, bullets were substituted for arrows, and even to this day no savage presumes to pass the spot without discharging his rifle and raising his shout of triumph. I visited the spot in June (1838) and examined the image and the ten thousand bullet marks on the cliff seemed to corroborate the tradition related to me in the neighborhood.
Mr. McAdams, loc. cit., also reports regarding Fig. 42:
Some twenty-five or thirty miles above the mouth of the Illinois river, on the west bank of that stream, high up on the smooth face of an overhanging cliff, is another interesting pictograph sculptured deeply in the hard rock. It remains to-day probably in nearly the same condition it was when the French voyagers first descended the river and got their first view of the Mississippi. The animal-like body, with the human head, is carved in the rock in outline. The huge eyes are depressions like saucers, an inch or more in depth, and the outline of the body has been scooped out in the same way; also the mouth.
The figure of the archer with the drawn bow, however, is painted, or rather stained with a reddish brown pigment, over the sculptured outline of the monster’s face.
Mr. McAdams suggests that the painted figure of the human form with the bow and arrows was made later than the sculpture.
The same author (b) says, describing Fig. 43:
Some 3 or 4 miles above Alton, high up beneath the overhanging cliff, which forms a sort of cave shelter on the smooth face of a thick ledge of rock, is a series of paintings, twelve in number. They are painted or rather stained in the rock with a reddish brown pigment that seems to defy the tooth of time. It may be said, however, that their position is so sheltered that they remain almost perfectly dry. We made sketches of them some thirty years ago and on a recent visit could see that they had changed but little, although their appearance denotes great age.
These pictographs are situated on the cliff more than a hundred feet above the river. A protruding ledge, which is easily reached from a hollow in the bluff, leads to the cavernous place in the rock.
Mr. James D. Middleton, formerly of the Bureau of Ethnology, mentions the occurrence of petroglyphs on the bluffs of the Mississippi river, in Jackson county, about 12 miles below Rockwood. Also of others about 4 or 5 miles from Prairie du Rocher, near the Mississippi river.
Mr. P. W. Norris, of the Bureau of Ethnology, found numerous caves on the banks of the Mississippi river, in northeastern Iowa, 4 miles south of New Albion, containing incised petroglyphs. Fifteen miles south of this locality paintings occur on the cliffs. He also discovered painted characters upon the cliffs on the Mississippi river, 19 miles below New Albion.
Mr. Edward Miller reports in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. X, 1869, p. 383, the discovery of a petroglyph near the line of the Union Pacific railroad, 15 miles southeast of Fort Harker, formerly known as Fort Ellsworth, Kansas. The petroglyph is upon a formation belonging to No. 1, Lower Cretaceous group, according to the classification of Meek and Hayden.
The parts of the two plates VII and VIII of the work cited, which bear the inscriptions, are now presented as Fig. 44, being from two views of the same rock.
Mr. James D. Middleton, formerly of the Bureau of Ethnology, in a letter dated August 14, 1886, reports that at a point in Union county, Kentucky, nearly opposite Shawneetown, Illinois, petroglyphs are found, and from the description given by him they appear to resemble those in Jackson county, Illinois, mentioned above.
Mr. W. E. Barton, of Wellington, Ohio, in a communication dated October 4, 1890, writes as follows:
At Clover Bottom, Kentucky, on a spur of the Big Hill, in Jackson county, about 13 miles from Berea, is a large rock which old settlers say was covered with soil and vegetation within their memory. Upon it are representations of human tracks, with what appear to be those of a bear, a horse, and a dog. These are all in the same direction, as though a man leading a horse, followed the dog upon the bear’s track. Crossing these is a series of tracks of another and larger sort which I can not attempt to identify. The stone is a sandstone in the subcarboniferous. As I remember, the strata are nearly horizontal, but erosion has made the surface a slope of about 20°. The tracks ascending the slope cross the strata. I have not seen them for some years.
The crossing of the strata shows that the tracks are the work of human hands, if indeed it were not preposterous to think of anything else in rocks of that period. Still the tracks are so well made that one is tempted to ask if they can be real. They alternate right and left, though the erosion and travel have worn out some of the left tracks. A wagon road passes over the rock and was the cause of the present exposure of the stone. It can be readily found a fourth of a mile or less from the Pine Grove schoolhouse.
A number of inscribed rocks have been found in Maine and information of others has been obtained. The most interesting of them and the largest group series yet discovered in New England is shown in Pl. XII.
The rock upon which the glyphs appear is in the town of Machiasport, Maine, at Clarks point, on the northwestern side of Machias bay, 2 miles below the mouth of Machias river. The rock or ledge is about 50 feet long from east to west and about fifteen feet in width, nearly horizontal for two-thirds its length, from the bank or western end at high water, thence inclining at an angle of 15° to low-water mark. Its southern face is inclined about 40°. The formation is schistose slate, having a transverse vein of trap dike extending nearly across its section. Nearly the entire ledge is of blue-black color, very dense and hard except at the upper or western end, where the periodical formation of ice has scaled off thin layers of surface and destroyed many figures which are remembered by persons now living. The ebb and flow of tides, the abrasion of moving beach stones or pebble wash and of ice-worn bowlders, have also effaced many figures along the southern side, until now but one or two indentations are discernible. Visitors, in seeking to remove some portion of the rock as a curiosity or in striving to perpetuate their initials, have obscured several of the most interesting, and until recently the best defined figures. It was also evident to the present writer, who carefully examined the rock in 1888, that it lay much deeper in the water than once had been the case. At the lowest tides there were markings seen still lower, which could not readily have been made if that part of the surface had not been continuously exposed. The depression of a rock of such great size, which was so gradual that it had not been observed by the inhabitants of the neighboring settlement, is an evidence of the antiquity of the peckings.
The intaglio carving of all the figures was apparently made by repeated blows of a pointed instrument—doubtless of hard stone; not held as a chisel, but working by a repetition of hammerings or peckings. The deepest now seen is about three-eighths of an inch. The amount of patient labor bestowed upon these figures must have been great, considering the hardness of the rock and the rude implement with which they were wrought.
There is no extrinsic evidence of their age. The place was known to traders early in the seventeenth century, and much earlier was visited by Basque fishermen, and perhaps by the unfortunate Cortereals in 1500 and 1503. The descendants of the Mechises Indians, a tribal branch of the Abnaki, who once occupied the territory between the St. Croix and Narraguagus rivers, when questioned many years ago, would reply in substance that “all their old men knew of them,” either by having seen them or by traditions handed down through many generations.
Several years ago Mr. H. R. Taylor, of Machias, who made the original sketch in 1868 and kindly furnished it to the Bureau of Ethnology, applied to a resident Indian there (Peter Benoit, then nearly 80 years old) for assistance in deciphering the characters. He gave little information, but pointed out that the figures must not all be read “from one side only,” thus, the one near the center of the sketch, which seen from the south was without significance, became from the opposite point a squaw with sea fowl on her head, denoting, as he said, “that squaw had smashed canoe, saved beaver-skin, walked one-half moon all alone toward east, just same as heron wading alongshore.” Also that the three lines below the figure mentioned, which together resemble a bird track or a trident, represent the three rivers, the East, West, and Middle rivers of Machias, which join not far above the locality. The mark having a rough resemblance to a feather, next on the right of this river-sign, is a fissure in the rock. Most of the figures of human beings and other animals are easily recognizable.
Peckings of a character similar to those on the Picture rock at Clarks point, above described, were found and copied 600 feet south of it at high-water mark on a rock near Birch point. Others were discovered and traced on a rock on Hog island, in Holmes bay, a part of Machias bay. All these petroglyphs were without doubt of Abnaki origin, either of the Penobscot or the Passamaquoddy divisions of that body of Indians. The rocks lay on the common line of water communication between those divisions and were convenient as halting places.
In the Susquehanna river, about half a mile south of the state line, is a group of rocks, several of the most conspicuous being designated as the “Bald Friars.” Near by are several mound-shaped bowlders of the so-called “nigger-head” rock, which is reported as a dark-greenish chlorite schist. Upon the several bowlders are deep sculpturings, apparently finished by rubbing the depression with stone, or wood and sand, thus leaving sharp and distinct edges to the outlines. Some of these figures are an inch in depth, though the greater number are becoming more and more eroded by the frequent freshets, and by the running ice during the breaking up in early spring of the frozen river.
The following account is given by Prof. P. Frazer (a):