HISTORY OF VERMONT. 207 



very rough figures or inscriptions upon the trees, 

 to represent the direction of their march, the 

 number of enemies which they had slain, and 

 taken captive.* These kind of inscriptions 

 were sometimes made upon the rocks ; but 

 they were not confined to the affairs of war. At 

 West river in this state, near its entrance into 

 Connecticut river, several of these inscriptions 

 yet remain. They are irregularly placed, and 

 rudely scratched upon a rock, and but little 

 sunk below its surface. Four of them seem 

 designed to represent the wild duck, and the 

 fifth was probably designed for a fox or wolf. 

 At Bellow's falls in Rockingham there are seve- 

 ral figures of a superior work. They amount 

 to ten or twelve in number, and are wrought into 

 the surface of the rock. These inscriptions 

 represent a number of heads ; some of men, 

 some of women, some of children, and some of 

 other animals. The outlines of these figures 

 are aukward and ill executed, but they are sunk 

 into the rock at least one third of an inch in 

 depth. How long they have been there, or 

 what transactions they were intended to repre- 

 sent, no tradition gives us any account ; but 

 their rudeness and awkwardness denote that the 

 formers of them were at a great remove from 

 the knowledge of any alphabet. The art of 

 numbering and computation, is an elementary 

 and essential art in every nation where business 

 is transacted, or any considerable intercourse 

 and commerce is carried on. But the savage 

 had nothing to number, that was of much im- 



* Sir W.Johnson'* account; Pliil. Trail*. Vol. LXIII. paje 143, 



