CHAPMAN ANCIENT GROOVED ROCKS IN ARKANSAS. 29 



ANCIENT GROOVED ROCKS IN ARKANSAS. 



BY W. A. CHAPMAN. 



Clark County, Arkansas, abounds in much that is of interest to 

 those who are engaged in deciphering records of the once powerful race 

 that peopled the Mississippi Valley in times so long past that the records 

 of their presence have become so obscure and so intermixed with those 

 of later Indian races as to render the decipherment of such existing data 

 as have a bearing upon the origin, characteristics, and disappearance of 

 the builders of the mounds an exceedingly difficult task. Of these 

 features (relating to this departed race) now open to our inspection, 

 there are probably none more worthy of our attention, nor more per- 

 plexing in their nature, than the so-called incised or sculptured rocks. 

 The rock which forms the subject of this paper is exposed to view on 

 Sec. 18, Tp. 8, R. 22 W. (fifty feet from Gentry's Mill). Its texture is 

 that of a coarse micaceous sandstone, difficultly frangible. The surface 

 where ungrooved is smooth. The exposure is triangular in shape, 

 and is 12x75 feet in extent, its greatest length being nearly N. and S. 

 The east side and portions of the north project above the valley of the 

 spring branch from one to three feet. The north and east sides are 

 covered by a slight elevation. The exposed surface of to-day is un- 

 doubtedly much more extensive than when these groovings were made, 

 as portions of the rock are so covered by these grooves as to render 

 their forms obscure. 



The groups as figured in the diagrams are fac similes of the most 

 striking forms seen upon the rock. These, if taken singly, would ap- 

 pear to have been designed as symbolical; but when taken collectively 

 with the various interjacent figures (not shown in the diagram) this 

 methodical arrangement and appearance of design vanishes, and the 

 confusion which prevails demonstrates that the forms are accidental 

 and that the groovings which form them were a secondary and un- 

 sought for product of the labor of the artisan, whose sole endeavor had 

 been to sharpen and polish his stone implements. Figs. 18 and 20 

 bear a marked resemblance to Fig. 6 as portrayed by T. H. Lewis in 

 his "Ancient Rock Inscriptions in Eastern Dakota," and there is also a 



