In the paper “Sign Language among the North American Indians,” published in the First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, a large number of instances were given of the reproduction of gesture lines in the pictographs made by the North American Indians, and they appeared to be most frequent when there was an attempt to convey subjective ideas. These were beyond the range of an artistic skill limited to the rough presentation of objects in outline. It was suggested, therefore, that the part of pictographs which is the most difficult of interpretation in the absence of positive knowledge, was the one in the elucidation of which the study of sign-language would assist. Many pictographs in the present paper, the meaning of which is definitely known from direct sources, are noted in connection with the gesture-signs corresponding with the same idea, which signs are also understood from independent evidence. So numerous and conclusive are these examples, that it is not necessary to add to them save by presenting the pictograph copied in Figure 155, as one of special importance in this connection. During the summer of 1882 Dr. W. J. Hoffman visited the Tule River Agency, California, where he found a large rock painting, of which Figure 155 is a copy made by him, the following being his description: The agency is located upon the western side of the Sierra Nevada in the headwater cañons of the branches of the south fork of Tule River. The country is at present occupied by several tribes of the Yokuts linguistic stock, and the only answer received to inquiries respecting the age or origin of the record was, that it was found there when the ancestors of the present tribes arrived. The local migrations of the various Indian tribes of this part of California are not yet known with sufficient certainty to determine to whom the records may be credited, but all appearances with respect to the weathering and disintegration of the rock upon which the record is etched, the appearance of the coloring matter subsequently applied, and the condition of the small depressions made at the time for mixing the pigments with a viscous substance would indicate that the work had been performed about a century ago. The Tulare Indians have been residents of that part of the State for at least one hundred years, and the oldest now living state that the records were found by their ancestors, though whether more than two generations ago could not be ascertained. [Illustration: FIG. 155.--Rock-painting. Tule River, California.]