112 DAVENPORT ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. 



percentage of the entire number of etchings. The characters 

 which are greatly in excess, and which present an indefinite variety 

 of form and ehiboration, are circles, either plain, nucleated,* bi- 

 sected, concentric, or "spectacle-shaped," by pairs or threes, or 

 with various forms of interior ornamentation. Plate V, D, E. 



This series resembles etchings from the Canary Islandsf so closely 

 that the illustrations serve for both localities. The coincidence is 

 remarkable, from the fact that the resemblance does not lie in one 

 or several instances only, but .in many. On the same plate. Fig. 

 b, are a variety of circles with ornamented interiors, from a simple 

 bisection to the stellate and cruciform varieties. ;j; There are similar 

 ornamented circles, having from three to five short, vertical lines 

 attached to the bottom, B 6, a form of designating water or rain by 

 some Indians ; though, if these same characters were shown to some 

 of the Moki or Zuni Indians, they would pronounce them to be 

 masks such as are used in dances and religious ceremonies. § 



*In the first volume of the Journal of the Anthropological Institute of New 

 York, 1871-72, p. 65, are two illustrations representing a variety of circles, 

 either plain, nucleated, or concentric, which were copied from a large boulder 

 in Forsyth Co., Georgia, and attributed to the Cherokees. The resemblance 

 lietween these sculpturings and those from Owens Valley is striking. The spect- 

 acle-shaped characters i. e. circles united by straight lines, and waving lines ter- 

 minating in two circles, placed side by side, also occur in both localities men- 

 tioned. From information recently obtained, I learn that the Cherokee picto- 

 graphs in eastern Tennessee are usually placed upon the vertical walls of rock 

 and indicate burial places near by, or caves in which bodies had been interred. 



f Noticias sobre Los Caracteres jeroglificos grabados en las rocas volcanicas de 

 las Islas Canarias ; por Mr. Sabin Berthelot. <^ Boletin de la .Sociedad Geogra- 

 fica de Madrid, 1876, Vol. I, No. 3, pp. 261-279. Map, bearing illustrations of 

 engraved characters. This was also pul^lished in Bull. .Soc. de Geog. de France, 

 1875, ^thser., IX, pp. 177-192, 111. 



\ Similar circles bearing cross lines are mentioned by Prof. J. Y. Simpson as oc- 

 curring at Grevinge, Zeeland, and other forms resembling some in Owens Valley, 

 from Sleive-na-Calligha, and, New Grange and Dowth, Ireland. <^ Proc. So- 

 ciety of Antiquaries of Scotland, 1867. Separate appendix in 410. PI. XXXI, 

 Fig. 3; PI. XXVIII; PI. XXIX, Figg. 8, 9. Compare also PI. XLIX of Vol. 

 VII for 1866-68, 1870 of same work, with reference to a sculptured stone from 

 Les Grottos de Keroville, Carnac, Brittany. Text on pp. 394, 395. 



y^ It is not difficult to find certain characters reproduced in various ]->ortions of 

 the world, but when the coincidences embrace an unusual number of instances 

 at any given locality, the fact becomes one of more than passing mterest. Of a 

 variety of sculpturings occurring. in Owen's Valley, I find exact reproductions of 



