Picture-Writing of the American Indians: Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1888-89, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1893, pages 3-822Mallery, Garrick
History
Picture-Writing of the American Indians: Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1888-89, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1893, pages 3-822
Mallery, Garrick
Picture-writing, Indian
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.
KANSAS.
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.
[Illustration: FIG. 44.--Petroglyphs in Kansas.]
KENTUCKY.
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.
MAINE.
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account