The Indians of Guiana know nothing about the picture writing by tradition. They scout the idea of their having been made by the hand of man, and ascribe them to the handiwork of the Makunaima, their great spirit. Nevertheless, they do not regard them with any superstitious feelings, looking upon them merely as curiosities, which is the more extraordinary as there are numbers of large rocks without any markings on some rivers, which they will not even look at in passing, lest some calamity should overtake them. Their Peaimen or sorcerers always squeeze tobacco juice in their eyes on approaching these, but pay no regard to the sculptured rocks. In the Pacaraima mountains, between the villages of Mora and Itabay, the path passes through a circle of square stones placed on one end, one of which has a carving upon it; some of these blocks have been thrown down and broken by the Indians, clearly proving their utter disregard for them. If then there were any traditions regarding these writings handed down from father to son, I conclude that the Indians of the present day--the most superstitious of beings--would undoubtedly treat them with awe and respect. Again, if their forefathers were as indolent as they now are, they never would have gone to the trouble of making these pictures merely for the purpose of passing away their time, which they could have more easily accomplished by lying in their hammocks from morning to night in a semi-dreamy sort of state, as their descendants do at present. As these figures were evidently cut with great care and at much labor by a former race of men, I conclude that they were made for some great purpose, probably a religious one, as some of the figures give indications of Phallic worship. PETROGLYPHS IN BRAZIL. The following is an abstract from a paper by J. Whitfield on Rock Inscriptions in Brazil, in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1874, Vol. III, p. 114: The rock inscriptions were visited in August, 1865, during an exploring expedition for gold mines in the province of Ceará. Several similar inscriptions are said to exist in the interior of the province of Ceará, as well as in the provinces of Pernambuco and Piauhy, especially in the _Sertaõs_, that is, in the thinly-wooded parts of the interior, but no mention is ever made of their having been seen near the coast. In the margin and bed only of the river are the rocks inscribed. On the margin they extend in some instances to fifteen or twenty yards. Except in the rainy season the stream is dry. The rock is a silicious schist of excessively hard and flinty texture. The marks have the appearance of having been made with a blunt heavy tool, such as might be made with an almost worn-out mason’s hammer.